Ecce! Adsum!
by Spjonkeyz
Summary: An OC is reincarnated into the world of Naruto. Welcome to a world of ninja shenanigans, kid. [Semi-SI OC]
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

I was born into this new world the same way I died in the last one.

That is, screaming and covered in blood.

That was lots of fun.

 _Anyways_ , after much screaming and crying, I finally calmed down enough to take stock in my surroundings.

Konoha. _Frickin' Konoha_.

The leaf thingy on the medic-nin's forehead kind of clued me in on that.

Well, either this was Konoha, or these guys were hardcore cosplayers.

I honestly don't know which one would be worse, people who murdered and blew things up on a regular basis, or weebs.

Oh god the weebs.

Although if the entire society here is obsessed with Japanese culture, I'll eventually be inducted into their culture-worship cult.

Either that, or I'll become a child soldier.

Honestly, I'd rather be a child soldier.

* * *

Both of my new parents have pretty crazy hair colors. My father's hair is a dark purple, while my mother's hair is an obnoxious shade of blue.

No really, it's bright as _shit._

Her hair is an eye-watering monstrosity

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I hope that my parents are just kind of weird,and the the hair is just dyed, and _not_ genetic. If I inherit, that _freaking hair_ , the world will witness the first infant suicide.

Kidding, I wouldn't kill myself over something like that, but you bet your ass that I'd get my hands on some hair dye first chance I get.

It's been about seven months since I came into this world, and I can confidently say that these people _aren't_ weebs.

They're just frickin' ninja.

How I know that, you ask?

I frickin' saw the Kyuubi stomp through the village. Hell, I _felt_ the Kyuubi stomp through the village. Killing Intent is no joke.

I also totally didn't soil myself.

…

Okay so I totally soiled myself. But _frickin'_... _Kyuubi!_ That shit was terrifying! Also! I'm not even one year old yet! I'm entitled to piss my pants whenever I want to! Thank you very much.

Anyways, I'm in a world full of murderers for hire, with only spotty, half remembered fanfiction knowledge.

 _Wonderful_.

Oh yeah, and my parents are dead.

That sucks.

 _That sucks a lot._

I mean, I didn't know these people for that long, so I'm not losing my mind or anything, but these people cared for me. They raised me so far, and they've grown on me.

Just like that, I've gotten my first experience of what it's like in a world of ninja. This world is cruel, with murderers stalking you at every turn. Then there's the shit like S-Rankers, who can blow up a _goddamn village_ no sweat. If I want to survive in this world I'll need to be strong. Stronger than anyone else. I need to _be_ one of these S-Rankers.

Otherwise, I'll die.

But before that, my parents are dead, and I'm not even a year old yet.

Off to the orphanage I go!

* * *

I've spent about a year in the orphanage.

 _This is boring as hell._

No seriously it's awful. I can't exactly socialise with the other children. They were awkward to interact with, with my previous life experience making it almost impossible to properly interact with children my physical age.

They were adorable though.

During my stay at the orphanage, I learned to read and write, thank God- er, Kami for neural plasticity. I've already exhausted the orphanage's pitiful library of even more pitiful books. Seriously, most of the books were little kid stories. Except, you know, ninja crap.

So like, ninja stories, but with most of the violence severely cut down.

They _sucked_.

 _And I read them anyways._

Really, they were my only source of entertainment.

I think I've freaked out the caretakers, having someone who can barely speak- _curse this infernal underdeveloped body_ \- reading and writing already.

I've also tried to unlock my chakra. I've barely made any progress in that, but _fuck it_ , it's something to do.

Maybe I should ask my caretakers to take me to the library. Maybe I could do some reading on chakra 'n stuff. I could an early start or someth- _Holy crap!_

Or, you know, I could just lose all feeling in my limbs and collapse on the ground.

"Kukukuku. You're certainly an interesting child."

Damn. I knew that voice. And that laugh.

 _Damnit!_ I'm furious with myself. _I'm such an idiot!_ How could I forget this asshat?! This is why all reincarnated OCs put limiters on themselves! It's so that this asshole leaves them alone!

Orochimaru's pale face filled my vision as he leaned over me. His insane grin flashing. As my eyes blurred and my vision started to fail, I had only one thought.

 _Well, I'm boned._

* * *

For the next few months all I could feel is pain.

Or maybe it's been years? Maybe it's only been a few days. Time stays stagnant when you're not having fun.

And believe me, I'm _most certainly not having fun._

Every day Orochimaru would waltz into my cell with a syringe of _something_ and stab me with it. Some days he'd bring me to his lab, strap me to a table, and… and… _Oh God._ Then I'd eat a grey, mushy, tasteless meal. Then, I'd go to sleep. Then wake up the next day, to do the same thing.

Orochimaru seems to be growing impatient with me. The syringes have done nothing lasting to me, and he's probably seen nothing abnormal with my physique. I'm just a normal kid physically.

I'm a failed experiment. And I know _exactly_ what happens to failed experiments.

They're subjected to some crazy shit that'll probably kill them, then they're thrown out like trash.

 _Damnit_.

I'm gonna be the shortest-lived SI character in the history of Fanfiction.

At this rate, I'll be a one-shot.

My blood feels like ice in my veins as I consider another possibility.

Maybe I won't be a one-shot, but since this is a fanfiction, there's a whole 'nother thing coming.

I have fanfiction protagonist luck, plot armour. I'll probably survive whatever the hell Orochimaru has coming for me.

Then I'll be a _Mary Sue._

Frickin'... _Goddamnit!_

I'll be a fucking unkillable Wood Release, Rinnegan… whatever the fuck.

Just kill me Orochimaru.

 _Kill me._

* * *

 _A/N: First attempt at a story. It'd be great if you left a review and gave me some feedback._


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

Good news ya'll!

I didn't die!

I'm just staring down almost certain death!

 _Wonderful_.

Orochimaru left me at his lab. He had to abandon the lab after some team of nin stumbled upon it. No doubt, they'd report back to their home village, and then they'd send a veritable army after Orochimaru's pale ass.

Yeah, Orochimaru _sort of_ tried to kill them before they ran, but he was more concerned with some delicate experiment than actually maintaining secrecy.

 _So yeah!_ I got abandoned! I was a failed experiment anyways, it's not like he cared much for me.

After Orochimaru packed up the important stuff and booked it, I was left in my cell, alone. Orochimaru had left the key to my cell _tantalisingly_ close. It was hardly a metre away from my cell's bars.

Asshat. Probably wanted to break my spirit after seeing the key so close.

I strained to reach the key. I focused my entire will on getting it, but the key was just out of reach. So I just glared at it. I felt hatred swell up, hatred of _Orochimaru._ The man who experimented on me, the many who took me away before my life could even start, the man who _dangled my freedom just out of reach._ I focused my entire being on the key, icy hatred welling up in my heart. My vision ran red. _Fucking Orochi-!_

The key bonked me in the head.

 _Dafuq?_

I blinked.

And rubbed my eyes.

And blinked again.

Again, _dafuq?_

Shrugging I picked up the key and unlocked my cell. Ninja magic, I guess.

As I walked through the empty halls of Orochimaru's lab, I felt a stinging in my right hand. Looking down, I saw a small cut, along with a miniscule amount of blood.

When had that happened?

It wasn't really a huge cut, so I just shrugged it off.

I rifled through the stuff Orochimaru left behind. He had a few extra robes, so I took one. Hey, it was better than nothing. I found a frankly ridiculous amount of purple rope. I took that too. I also found a pouch with a few kunai in it. I strapped the pouch to my hip. Orochimaru had hardly left anything behind.

I walked around more in search of a bathroom, I figured I could get washed up.

Walking into a relatively small bathroom, I glanced at the mirror, and did a double take.

 _Holy shit_.

Orochimaru's robe looked ridiculous on me. It was way too big, with the sleeves covering my hands entirely, and the hem almost touching the ground.

But that wasn't what freaked me out.

 _My eyes. What the fuck happened to my eyes?_

Or, more specifically, my right eye.

It was a mechanical monstrosity, with tiny gears turning, and little discs spinning, all with miniscule seals written on them. It was mainly a bronze colour, with a single glowing blue dot in the middle, presumably an iris or pupil of some kind.

That's what I cut myself on. The small cut on my right hand. I had gotten it when I rubbed my eyes. _I cut myself on my own eyeball!_

I'm not ashamed to say that I panicked. I screamed, and I ran around like a maniac. But once I calmed down enough to actually think about it, it all made sense.

Orochimaru experimented on numerous people to fine-tune his Living Corpse Reincarnation. This must've been one of the solutions to immortality that he considered. Building an entire body out of mechanical parts. He probably believed the method to be impractical for whatever reason. Maybe it took too much time, or it was impossible to fully integrate a soul into a machine.

I was struck by another terrifying thought.

 _What if he replaced other organs?_

What if he replaced stuff like my heart? What if he ran wires through my arms? What if I was like, a cyborg ninja, with half my body replaced by machinery?

Actually that'd be pretty cool.

You know, other than the excruciating pain of having mechanical parts integrated into your body.

I explored the lab more, trying to find an exit. It wasn't hard to navigate the lab. It was probably one of Orochimaru's small labs, little outposts. That's probably why he wasn't too concerned with losing the lab.

Eventually I found my way outside.

Where porcelain masks glared down on me.

 _ANBU._

* * *

"ANBU, report," the tired voice of the Third Hokage called out. Sarutobi Hiruzen had heard a report of one of Orochimaru's laboratories from a chunin border patrol team. He had sent a team of ANBU to scout the location. The cat-masked ANBU stepped forward.

"We almost nothing of value at Orochimaru's laboratory, Hokage-sama. He had already cleaned up the laboratory before we arrived. All but one of Orochimaru's experiments were dead. We encountered that survivor and brought him back."

The Hokage sighed, reminded of his greatest mistake, "Drop off the… experiment… at the Torture and Interrogation department."

The ANBU saluted.

"Dismissed."

In an instant, the ANBU vanished, off to carry Orochimaru's toy to be interrogated.

The Hokage felt older than ever in that moment. He had lived a long life, filled with mistakes. Orochimaru was the greatest, and the most tragic of them all.

* * *

I woke up strapped to a chair. Staring at me was a heavily scarred man wearing a beanie with the Konoha leaf emblazoned on it. He scowled at me, and got right down to business.

"Name?"

Right, easy question.

…

…

Holy shit, I don't even know my own name.

That's kinda depressing.

Maybe it'll earn me a few pity points?

"... I don't know."

Ibiki studied me for a moment.

"Affiliation?"

"None."

"Place of birth?"

"Konohagakure."

And so the interrogation went. Eventually, after countless questions, including many that I didn't have answers to, Ibiki left. I sat in the dark room for a while, until the door opened again. A blonde man walked in. I immediately recognised him as Yamanaka Inoichi.

See, here's the thing that pisses me off, why the _fuck_ would you bother interrogating me if you're just gonna bring in a mindwalker to rip those memories from my head? Like seriously-

The world faded away. I would equate the next minute or so to an acid trip. I saw my entire life play out in the span of seconds. I _felt_ Inoichi rifle through my memories, he experienced every second my short life, from the small amount of time in the orphanage, to the experimentation of Orochimaru.

The world faded back into sight, and I saw Inoichi's face. It was indifferent, cold. No doubt he had seen even greater horrors than Orochimaru's experiments.

* * *

They let me go. Konoha's reputation as the softest of the hidden villages was totally legit. They gave me an orphan's stipend, as well as a recommendation of an apartment.

A rather _strong_ recommendation.

The apartment they suggested was a complex full of shinobi. Konoha still wanted to keep an eye on me.

They sort of had a file on me. They saw my parents from my memories, and they had a baby on their file. They knew I was born in Konoha.

The thing is, my parents were killed in the Kyuubi attack not even two weeks after I was born.

They didn't even get to name me.

It was the cat ANBU named me. When he lead me to the apartment complex, I asked him to name me. Mainly because it felt wrong to name myself.

He seemed shocked for a minute. Then sad.

He called me Seidome.

* * *

 _A/N: Feedback is much appreciated._


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

I was seven years old according to the records.

Orochimaru had taken me in when I was about a year old.

 _Six years_.

 _Damnit Orochimaru._

That also means it's about time for me to go to the Academy.

Which is exactly what I'm doing right now.

My days at the Academy were… interesting.

My physical aspects _sucked_. I spent the last couple years cooped up in a cell, after all. My academics, on the other hand, were _amazing_. Geography and history were actually kind of interesting. It was actually a lot of fun to learn about a history of an entirely different world. Then there was _math._

Oh _God_.

Er… Kami.

You have to remember, I'm an adult stuck in a seven year old body.

I was being taught basic math.

"What's four plus four, class?" The instructor would ask.

 _Fuck you_! I would mentally shout, while banging my head on a desk.

Oh yeah, and then there was Ninjutsu. _Ninjutsu._

It made me giggle just thinking about it.

I'm not sure why, but I was absolutely _godly_ with chakra.

Compared to these seven-year-old kids at least.

I got the the leaf exercise and the Henge down in one class. In the next Ninjutsu class, I learned the Kawarimi, and in the next, I learned the Clone Technique. My chakra reserves were _six times_ the amount of the next largest reserves in our class.

There was no one in our class that was better than me with Ninjutsu, and even the instructors realised that.

So Academy life was great. I was excelling in academics, and _dominating_ with Ninjutsu.

Except the fact that I _sucked_ at Taijutsu.

 _Damnit Orochimaru._

* * *

Mwahaha! Marvel at my power world! After two years in the Academy, I passed! That's right, with unrivaled academics, amazing Ninjutsu, and… somewhat mediocre other things, I passed the Academy!

It took me that entire extra year to get my physical skills to a passable level.

 _Damnit Orochimaru._

I wasn't rookie of the year or anything, but I was pretty good. I made top ten at least. My Taijutsu dragged me behind by that much. To be fair though, I was also younger than all the kids in the class that I graduated with.

I graduated a year or two before the main cast of the show, despite being the same age as them. Eat it eventual demigods!

I waited in the classroom for my sensei to show up. The other teams had gotten picked up by their senseis fifteen minutes ago. I looked at who would make up my future team.

A black haired guy, who looked _pissed_.

A girl, with… purple hair? Right, anime world. She seemed almost too calm for this.

I hadn't bothered to learn the names of any of my classmates… so… yeah… black haired one is Teammate Number One, and purple is Teammate Number Two.

The three of us passed time in silence.

Thirty minutes.

Forty-five.

An hour.

Two hours.

 _The fuck is taking so long?_ Teammate Number One looks like he's just about ready to explode. Teammate Number Two still carries her aura of icy calm.

Three hours.

A head of wild white hair pokes its way into the room. Oh _no._

"My first impression of you… you're all idiots. Meet me on the roof, have a little get together."

No. _No. Nonononono…_

Why is this happening?

Seriously?

Whelp, canon is fucked. There's no way that I'm about to fail Kakashi's bell test. I _refuse_ to go back for another year in the Academy. Naruto will just have to fend for himself.

The three of us silently made our way to the roof. Number One's face is turning an interesting shade of red, while Number Two fixed her cold glare onto Kakashi's bored expression. Kakashi gave an eye-smile.

"How about we get to know each other? Names, likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future, that kind of stuff."

Teammate Number One spoke up, "How about you go first," he said, only a moment away from screaming, "And tell us why you were _three hours late!_ " Ah, there it is, the scream of frustration.

"Of course," said Kakashi, that annoying eye smile still on his face, "My name is Hatake Kakashi, I have a few likes and dislikes, and couple hobbies. As for my dreams… who knows?" He said, with an indifferent shrug.

Cue the silent fuming.

"As for why I was late… a black cat crossed my path, so I had to take the long way around. Then, I got lost on the road of life."

Everyone was silent for a moment. It was an awkward silence, with no one feeling comfortable breaking it.

Ah, fuck it.

"That must've been one hell of a road." All eyes turned towards me. My two teammates seemed incredulous, and Kakashi _sparkled_ in joy.

"Please, introduce yourself, my new favorite student!"

"My name is Seidome… " I fumbled for a last name, until I realised, _haha_ I _have_ no family. _Hilarious._ Kakashi and the others were giving me weird looks, so I decided to smoothly cover up my little mind blank. "...Diddly-dong-dong-dong-dang!"

Nice. _Real nice._

"I like... " _Crap, what do I like?_ "Uh… cats? And… magic… eyeballs... " I wore a Tsunade-esque genjutsu over my mechanical eye to cover up the weirdness. I used to have to ask some of the shinobi in my apartment to do it for me, but now, since I know the Henge for myself, I can cover up my own weirdness! Joy! Speaking of the eye, it was _awesome_ , I mean, it was painful, and it's kind of weird, 'cause it doesn't really feel like a normal eye, but once you get used to it… my team is looking at me funny. Kakashi seems mildly alarmed.

Right, Sharingan. Oops. Probably shouldn't have brought up magic eyeballs.

"I dislike… snakes and… traitors and… pedophiles... " Wow this is… quite the introduction.

"My hobbies include… " Dicking around with my magic eyeball, "... reading." How could I make this any more awkward? "And… not… dying." Oh, I guess that's how.

"My dream for the future is… " _Fuck it,_ "To entirely understand and subscribe to the Will of Fire, the philosophy upon which our village, Konohagakure, was built upon. The Will of Fire emphasises the importance of teamwork, and the value of comrades. The Will of Fire's ultimate goal is to see to the success of Konohagakure through invoking a sense of unity and camaraderie amongst its shinobi forces. My goal is to truly take in this philosophy, and apply it in my career. Strength is in numbers. Friendship is magic."

My team looks taken aback. Rightfully so.

Kakashi speaks first, "Right… how about you next." He says, pointing at Teammate Number One. I plaster a painfully fake smile on my face. That introduction was _horrendous._

My teammates introduce themselves. I hardly pay attention. All I catch are their names. I was too busy wallowing in my misery to listen to much else. Teammate One's name is Daisuke. Teammate Number Two's name is Ayano. Finally, Kakashi tells us of the Gennin test tomorrow. My teammates are outraged, and Kakashi gives zero shits.

"Don't eat breakfast tomorrow. You'll probably throw up." With those parting words, Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

* * *

The next day, we all gathered at Training Ground Seven, where Kakashi told us to meet the day before.

It's six o'clock.

I'm tired.

And Kakashi isn't here.

"Why did we get such an _asshole_ for a sensei!?" Ah, that would be Teammate Number On- er… Daisuke. His outfit was a bit different from yesterday. He was wearing a blue mesh shirt and shorts. On his feet, he wore shinobi sandals.

"Even if he has his quirks, he still is our sensei, and as such, you should show some respect." Ayano replies. Like Daisuke, she had also gotten a new outfit. She was wearing what was essentially Sakura's pre-Shippuden outfit, except purple.

"Wow. You guys both went out and bought new clothes…" I wore the same stuff as yesterday. Shinobi often buy several sets of the same outfit. New outfits are generally only reserved for special occasions. You need to get used to fighting a certain way in certain clothing. If you wear the same stuff every day, you know exactly where you'll be a little more restricted, or where some of your clothes might get in the way.

Daisuke puffed out his chest, "Of course! We're Gennin now, after all."

"Isn't this supposed to be a test to determine whether or not we'll become Gennin?" I ask.

He deflates a little bit, but immediately bounces back, "We'll pass this test no sweat!" He confidently declares.

"I certainly hope so." I say.

We pass the rest of the three hours before Kakashi arrives in silence. It's painfully awkward.

"Yo."

 _Kakashi you asshole. Gave me a freaking heart attack!_

The other two look just as startled. Before any of us can respond, he continues.

"I've got two bells. Those that take the bells get lunch and become Gennin. Anyone who doesn't will be tied a tree trunk. Then, they'll go back to the Academy to repeat a year, or join the Gennin pool."

My teammates tense up. Neither of them want to back to the Academy, and it's well known, if mostly unspoken, information that the Gennin pool is a giant cesspit of mediocrity.

None of us will settle for mediocre.

"You have three hours. Until noon. Go."

My teammates immediately bolt for the forest. I'm left facing Kakashi.

"So… any chance that you'll just hand a bell over?" I ask. He raises an eyebrow in response, "Didn't think so."

I threw a kunai at Kakashi, and Kawarimi'd with it. He seemed genuinely shocked for a moment. The reason most Shinobi prefer to use logs is because they're relatively large, and stationary. To Kawarimi with an object, you have to really focus on it. The smaller it is, the more chakra you have to use, and the more concentration you have to have. This makes a moving kunai, something small and hard to focus on on the fly, impractical, and difficult to Kawarimi with. Additionally, the new perspective and momentum are rather jarring, making it kind of a bad idea to do during a fight.

Thankfully, my chakra is ridiculously easy to mold, making it possible for me to switch with the kunai. I barely have to focus my chakra at all. The disorientation of the switch is dangerous, but this is hardly a real fight, and I'm counting on Kakashi being surprised enough that I'll manage to get a hit in.

No such luck.

Despite being surprised with my Kawarimi, Kakashi responds quickly. He disappears for a moment, and reappears right on top of me. He shoves both of his feet into my stomach, sending me crashing down to the ground.

"Ouch," I groan. Both my stomach and my back will be bruised by tomorrow. Kakashi pulls his orange book.

And giggles.

…

Oh god, that's a lot more disturbing in real life.

Dang, I should have said Kami instead of God. I've got to get in the habit of doing that.

Another thrown kunai. He was ready for me this time. Despite not even looking up from his book, I know that he's aware of the kunai.

I didn't Kawarimi with the kunai I threw. Instead, I Kawarimi'd with the kunai I threw earlier, which was lying on the ground conveniently behind him.

I got one punch in. It was a wimpy punch, he didn't even feel it. He grabbed my wrist and slammed me to the ground.

How was I supposed to pass this test again?

Oh right. I needed my team.

"Hey, any chance you know where my teammates are!?" I call out to Kakashi. He doesn't even look up from his porn. He giggles again. "Guess not," I sigh.

I ran into the forest. "Hey! Where you guys at!?" I call. No one responds. Alrighty then. I gather a bunch of chakra in my hand and release it in all direction. The idea is that the chakra will bounce back and give me a rough outline of what the terrain looks like. This would usually be rather taxing on the chakra control front, but again, I have no problems there.

I felt a little pain in my chest and wince. This has been nagging at me for a while. Every now and then when I use a jutsu, I'd feel a little prick in my heart. I'll have to get that checked out sometime.

The chakra returns to me, and I get an overload of information. The human brain wasn't meant to take in all this information at once, unless there's some chakra shenanigans involved _cough cough, Byakugan, cough_. As my brain has absolutely zero chakra crap going on, I miss the vast majority of the terrain. All I get is a fuzzy outline of where stuff is. That's fine, all I needed to do was locate my teammates after all.

Daisuke is close to me. He's about two hundred metres to my left. I race off in search of him. With the help of another Echolocation Jutsu, I find him hiding in a tree.

"Psst! Daisuke!" I whisper-shout at him. He looks down in surprise.

"What are you doing here?"

"Let's team up to grab the bells. I was planning on getting Ayano next."

"Are you crazy? There's only two bells!"

"Yeah, but have you ever heard of a two-man team? There's no way that only two of us will pass the test. Sensei's probably just trying to break up the team. That must be what he's testing us on, teamwork."

Daisuke considers it for a moment. Then his eyes darken, "No way in hell is that what the test is about! He fumes, "I remember how much you suck at Taijutsu! You're just not strong enough to take a bell yourself, so you're using me!"

I panic, there's no way any of us have a chance of getting a bell. We need to show that we can work together, or _none_ of us are passing.

"Daisuke, _listen_ , we need to-"

"Shut up!" He chucks a kunai at me. I Kawarimi into the forest. Hopefully I'll have better luck convincing Ayano to work with me.

* * *

I didn't. I couldn't find Ayano in time for the test, even with my Echolocation Jutsu. The fuzzy outline the Jutsu returned to me wasn't detailed enough to make her out.

In the end, I was the one tied to a stump, while my teammates got steaming bentos.

"You all fail." He says, his eyes glittering in disappointment. "Don't give any food to Seidome, or I'll send you back to the Academy. He's being punished for having the worst performance." He disappears in a swirl of leaves.

I couldn't believe it. I'd have to go back to the Academy. _I don't have time_. The urgency of my existence in the world never hit me as hard as it did right there. I knew what would happen. I could _prevent_ the clusterfuck that was waiting to happen.

The first step is becoming a Gennin.

I slipped on the first stepping stone of my life.

Daisuke plopped down beside me.

I glanced at him.

He shoved his bento under my nose.

I gave him a disbelieving look, "You're okay with going back to the Academy?"

He looked at me, "What he said back there was bullshit. You're the only one who managed to even touch him, I saw. 'Punishing you for having the worst performance,' that's _bullshit_."

I blinked at him. He continued.

"And if _that_ was bullshit… well… who knows what else he said was bullshit. You're our strongest member. You've gotta eat up if we even want a chance at getting those bells. Maybe you were right. Maybe we _do_ need a team."

Ayano sat down on my other side. She didn't say anything, but she silently slid her bento towards me.

Daisuke grinned.

I gave a weak smile.

"You pass." Kakashi appeared in a swirl of leaves with an unreadable expression on his face.

 _A/N: The Kawarimi. It's pretty vaguely described in the series, so I took a few liberties with it. It's not straight-up teleportation, because it's practically impossible to swap with air. Air, being invisible, is exceedingly hard to focus on, and even if you could focus on it, good luck getting enough chakra to swap with a single air molecule. It's also not as good as Hiraishin, 'cause the Hiraishin has an advantage in both speed and distance. Kawarimi's (or at least my Kawarimi's) practically decreases over distances, as you can no longer focus on the object you're trying to swap with. Also, concentrating on things takes time. You'll never be able to overcome that flaw. That being said, Kawarimi is bullshit. I'm sure many of you would agree._

 _Constructive criticism is much appreciated._


	4. Chapter 4

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

D-Rank missions.

D-Rank missions.

Fuck D-Rank missions.

Right now, we were doing a Tora mission, and Kami did it suck.

Look! I'm finally getting in the habit of saying Kami!

Are you proud of me mom?

Oh wait…

Anyways, Tora mission. For whatever reason Tora was frickin' terrified of me. I've noticed that with pretty much all animals, actually. The few times I saw Kiba in the Academy, Akamaru all but whimpered in my presence.

This made capturing Tora exceedingly difficult. Tora could sense my presence from a mile away, and she would always book it before we even got close.

We had already been chasing Tora around for five hours now. Say what you will about the cat, but she can run.

"Daisuke, take left! Ayano, run into the alley to the right! We'll try to cut her off!" Ever since the bell test, I had been recognised as the unofficial leader of the team when Kakashi wasn't around, or paying attention.

Such as right now.

As if mocking my thoughts, a perverted giggle was heard from the rooftops. Yep, Kakashi was still reading his porn.

Sigh.

Daisuke ran to intercept Tora, but she veered off to the right. Ayano exploded out of the alleyway, her fingers just brushing Tora's tail before she scampered away. Then Tora caught sight of me. She froze in terror for a moment, then fled the other way.

Stay still dammit! This stupid ass cat! I swear, when I get my hands on you, I'll turn you into a hat! You hear me? A MOTHERFUCKING HA-

Tora mysteriously bonked me in the head. My two teammates looked at the cat in shock. Tora herself looked equally shocked.

Not wanting to waste an opportunity, we jumped on Tora, and bound her in ropes.

 _Finally!_

I felt another sting in my chest. I had grown used to the occasional chest pains over the course of the last few weeks or so. Training with an actual team had spiked my chakra usage, and therefore my chest pains considerably. I walked away with my team towards the Hokage's office.

"What happened back there?" Daisuke asked, "I mean, not that I'm not thankful or anything, but I'm just wondering."

I was silent. The way Tora just appeared was eerily similar to the way that the key from Orochimaru's lab had appeared in front of me. There had to be a connection somewhere. Perhaps Kakashi had seen what had happened? He was a high level ninja after all, perhaps with his stockpile of experience he had an idea of how Tora seemingly teleported into our arms.

He let out another perverted giggle.

Or perhaps not.

* * *

Kakashi's training was brutal, it wasn't anything like in canon.

Don't get me wrong, he was lazy, and we often had to force him to train us, but once he got going, he was merciless.

That's exactly what I wanted. If I'm going to make a difference in the world, you bet your ass that I'm gonna need all the training that I can get.

Since I was ridiculously talented with Ninjutsu, I had mastered tree walking in a _day_ , and water walking in two.

Kakashi had seemed a little surprised, but he recovered quickly. Since my throwing skills were only mediocre, and my physical aspects were subpar, he had me work on those.

Right now, I was doing… _something_ … on a tree branch. I'm not quite certain what kind of exercise I was doing, but let me tell you, _it was exhausting_.

On top of that, I had to three kunai at a moving bullseye every five seconds, regardless of what sort of position I was in.

Daisuke and Ayano were still figuring out tree walking. _Psh,_ peasants.

Nerds! Bet ya'll _wish_ you got experimented on by an insane S-ranked traitor now! Not only would you be done with tree walking, but you'd also have numerous body modifications, with Kami knows how many side effects! You'd be lucky to make it to twenty!

Wow. That… sounded a lot worse than I thought it would.

Granted, I _knew_ that Orochimaru's experiments messed me up, but saying it out loud just…

 _Fucking Orochimaru._

Seriously, doing mostly physical workouts _sucked_. When I became a Genin, I was hoping for some jutsu, or maybe an intro to seals. Not this.

Despite having the best chakra control and the largest chakra reserves, I was stuck doing what real ninja back on Earth _actually_ did.

Disgusting.

At least I had some noticeable progression with my training. Now I could maybe beat Ayano one-fourth of the time. I still had yet to beat Daisuke. I noticed that all the members of my team had different specialties. Daisuke was our Taijutsu guy. Ayano was our stereotypical kunoichi, with _scary_ throwing skills, and Genjutsu. I was the Ninjutsu specialist, despite the fact that right now, _I wasn't even training it._

All in all, we were a pretty well balanced team.

* * *

The next morning, we met again at Training Ground Seven.

"Anything you guys want to train for today?" Kakashi asks us over his porn.

"Wait, you're letting us choose?" Daisuke seems surprised. After all, Kakashi had chosen for us for the past two weeks or so.

"Sure." Kakashi replied, shrugging.

"How about some elemental jutsu?" I ask. It'd be nice to get my hands on some new jutsu.

"Tomorrow I'll bring chakra paper." Kakashi promised, "How about you guys?"

"Elemental stuff would be cool," said Daisuke.

"I'm fine with anything."

"Cool." Kakashi said, with an _infuriating_ eye smile, "But you all better work your asses off today." The eye smile turned vicious.

Well damn.

When Kakashi said that we'd work our asses off, he meant that we'd train our asses into the _ground._

After running a lap around the entire freaking _village_ as a Kami damn _warm up_ , we spent the rest of the day climbing the Hokage monument. Now, that might not seem hard, but instead of taking the path like a normal person, we climbed up the side.

With no chakra allowed.

While Kakashi's dogs nipped at our feet.

Ass.

The next day, we all met at the training ground. Kakashi, true to his promise, had three slips of chakra paper for us.

I took the paper in my hands and channelled a bit of chakra into it. It wrinkled. So, lightning.

Cool.

Looking over, I saw that Daisuke had earth, and Ayano had fire.

Lightning is good. It's fast and… yeah… fast. I mean, fire would be nice explosions are _awesome_ , but lightning is cool too, I guess.

Besides, Kakashi as a sensei plus lightning affinity equals _frickin' Chidori!_ _Badassery here I come!_

Come on Kakashi, what've you got for us? Awesome Ninjutsu? Crazy elemental combinations? I can practically _feel_ the power of untapped potential flowing through my very _soul._

Kakashi gave us a bunch of leaves to practice basic elemental changes with.

Ass.

* * *

 _A/N: About the nerf I mentioned last chapter, I should have phrased it a bit better. Seidome's gonna be strong enough to stand against crazy shinobi monsters, I promise. The 'nerf' is a sort of gateway for more power. It sounds kind of counterintuitive, and the 'nerf' doesn't actually nerf any of his powers in the long run. I'll get rid of the nerf note in the last chapter, it was poorly worded._

 _Feedback, as always, would be appreciated._


	5. Chapter 5

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

I stared impassively at the brush in my hand. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, I dipped the brush into a bucket of paint. I carefully dragged the brush up the fence. The brush delicately stroked the fencepost, as if it were caressing a loved one. I closed my eyes, the somewhat lumpy texture and constant movement of my right eye no longer bothering me.

I was one with the fence, with the paint.

I felt at peace with the world.

…

 _I want to freaking_ _ **murder**_ _someone!_

Seriously, this is like, the second chapter in a row where I rant about D-Rank missions! But Kami dammit, these rants aren't stopping until I get a real fucking mission!

Daisuke openly voices his disgust of D-Ranks just as much as I do, and though Ayano doesn't really talk too much, I can tell that she is sick of this bullcrap too!

Or, she probably is. Maybe? It's kind of hard to read her.

I can't even learn any more cool ninja magic! All the cool stuff is locked up in the section of the library for Chunin and above.

So here I am, the supposed NInjutsu specialist of the team.

Ninjutsu specialist my ass! This Ninjutsu specialist that knows only, like, the Academy Three and a couple chakra exercises!

 _Snap!_

Hm?

Oh, the paintbrush I was holding in my hand snapped in half. I wonder how that happened?

It definitely had nothing to do with me unconsciously venting my anger into some poor inanimate object. No, I would never do that!

 _Bang! Sploosh!_

Hm?

Oh, the bucket of paint that we were using is, for some reason, sideways in the middle of the road, spilling paint everywhere.

I looked down at my leg, that was suspiciously in a position that suggested that I recently kicked something. But I would never use my leg for something so petty! And I would never lash out at anything in anger!

 _Crash!_

Hm?

Oh, the entire length of fence that we were painting, alongside a sizeable portion of the ground underneath it, went flying towards the nearest building.

I looked down at my arm. It was glowing a blue in colour. The only thing that would cause my limbs to glow this sort of colour would be chakra enhancement. But I would nev- wait a minute.

When did I learn chakra strength enhancement?

Kakashi didn't teach it to me, he'd taught me absolutely _zero_ new jutsu. They don't teach this kind of stuff to a student at the Academy, so…

OP Chakra shenanigans for the win!

Or maybe… OP escaped experiment shenanigans for the win!

Er… wait, I couldn't have done that, 'cause I _totally_ _didn't throw the fence_. I mean, there's just no way that I would've done such a thi-

My teammates are staring at me weirdly.

Was I talking out loud?

Doesn't matter. You know why?

'Cause we still haven't gotten a _fucking C-Rank yet!_

* * *

My team met up at Training Ground Seven. Today, Kakashi was only two hours late, it's gotta be some kind of record.

"Alright team, today I've got a treat for you. " Kakashi starts. It's probably a Tora mission. Tora missions are ridiculously easy now. Tora didn't run away anymore.

She was just too terrified of me to even move.

Seriously, at least she ran in terror before. Ever since she was caught by us the first time, she became a whimpering mess whenever I was even in her general vicinity. I'm not sure how to feel about that. On one hand, Tora missions are super easy. On the other, I now know that all animals are terrified of me. No more cuddling with adorable fuzz balls!

"We're off to get a C-Rank mission for you!" Kakashi happily says, startling me out of my thoughts.

"Wait, what?" I smartly reply. I thought for sure that we weren't going to get a C-Rank until the end of time.

Kakashi replies, "Well, some of my cute little Genin seem to be getting rather violent with their requests for C-Ranks." At this, Kakashi and my teammates look pointedly at me, "Fearing for my life, I figured we would go and get a C-Rank to appease my ravenous monster of a Genin!" Kakashi gave an eye smile.

Daisuke grinned, "What are we waiting for then? Let's a-go!"

The walk to the mission office was short and filled with nervous excitement. I finally realised the full implications of taking on a C-Rank.

 _It's going to go horribly wrong._

Probably, maybe? C-Ranks are notorious in Naruto Fanfiction for going absolutely FUBAR for the protagonists.

Anyways, we were at the office. The desk chunin glanced up at us.

"D-Rank?"

"C-Rank." Kakashi says. The chunin throws a scroll at us. Kakashi catches it with well honed reflexes. He scans over it, and looks at us. "Escort mission to Grass country. Meet me at the gates at six."

"So, like, around nine, then?" Daisuke sasses Kakashi.

"I think my heart's about to break!" Kakashi replies, with tears streaming out of his lone eye, "Never would I have thought that my own Genin would give me such cold words!"

With that, we had the rest of the day off. I decided to grab some new clothes, I couldn't go on a mission with the rags I have on now.

Walking around town, I found the cheapest relatively wearable shinobi clothes I can find. A red shirt over a mesh. _23,000 ryo_. Standard black shinobi pants. _12,000 ryo._ Bandages to wrap around my stuff. _2,000 ryo._ Standard shinobi sandals. _16,000 ryo._

My orphan's stipend is taking a hit right here.

It's about to take even more hits. I gotta make sure I'm well stocked on other stuff. Kunai, shuriken, ninja wire, explosive and storage seals…

Can you hear that?

It's the sound of my poor orphan's stipend, screaming in agony is the poor ryo are sucked into the dark abyss of price tags.

Depressed, I leave the shop and walk back home.

* * *

The next morning, I wake up early and play dress up. I look into the mirror.

I'm not sure what I was expecting. I looked exactly the same as I always did, save for my outfit. Same ol' creepy mechanical eyeball, I hadn't gone to apply the genjutsu yet. Same ol' lame organic eye, a pale green colour. Same ol' eternal bedhead, with hair permanently stained white from some experiment or another.

 _Dammit Orochimaru._

I do one last check up of my gear.

Kunai?

Check.

Shuriken?

Check.

Storage seals with rations?

Check.

I mindlessly go over the rest of my gear, until there's only ten minutes to six o'clock. I set off for the gates.

Along the way, I noticed all of the trees

Well, I didn't _just_ realise that there were trees, it's just that this is the first time I've really given any thought to them.

I was just thinking that these trees were made by Hashirama Senju with the Wood Release, yeah?

So if I took these, then got my hands on a Sharingan…

If this crazy idea works… it probably won't. There were tons of Uchiha in the village at one point, and they've had _years_ of exposure to the trees. Yet, none of them awakened the Rinnegan.

Even with the high improbability of my idea working, I can't help but think of what could happen if it did work.

I broke a branch off of one of the trees and sealed it into an extra storage seal. Just in case.

Within a few minutes, the gates came into view, along with my waiting teammates.

"Hey guys!" I cheerfully greet my waiting teammates. Daisuke cheerfully waves at me. Ayano gives me one sharp nod, and looks away.

One of these days I'll get to her. One day.

There're people loading cargo into caravans. They don't seem to care about our presence. We leave them alone to do their work.

"Yo." Kakashi suddenly says from way too close. Seriously, he's hardly more than ten centimetres away. We all jump. We've been becoming used to Kakashi's greetings, and most of the time we're prepared for it when it happens. But he's only like, thirty minutes late this time. We weren't expecting that at all.

"So," Ayano begins, being the first to recover, "Are we going now?"

Kakashi looks over at the caravan dudes. They give a gruff, short grunt and a sharp nod.

"Good to go." He says back. "Seidome, take point. Daisuke on right, Ayano on left." Ah, the standard diamond formation that we were taught in the Academy. Cool.

Wait, why the hell was I taking point? The front of the diamond is the most exposed and vulnerable component of the formation. We were all basically equal in terms of combat ability, except our various specialties set us apart.

Ayano was a mid to long-range kunai slinger, so she would usually stay in the back as a support fighter. I'm the Ninjutsu specialist, which can be for any range, meaning that normally I would take point, but _I don't actually know Jutsu beyond the Academy Three._

Actually, Daisuke is the best choice for point, he's the Taijutsu guy, the most durable in combat. _He's_ the one that should take point so that Ayano and I can pelt the attackers from a distance.

Well, mostly Ayano would pelt the attackers from a distance. I'm not too good with kunai. I'm _okay_ , but I'm more kinda _meh_. I have a pretty limited of Jutsu too. Like I said before, _I only know the freaking Academy Three._

So yeah, Daisuke should be the one to take point, while Ayano and I should be the ones to hang back.

These were my thoughts as we walked through Konoha's gaaaa…

 _Holy crap these things are massive!_

Seriously, you never realise how big these things are until you actually walk through them.

Hashirama clearly went all Wood Release-happy with these things. Seriously, they're like, at the _very least_ thirty metres high.

Suddenly, the tree branch that I snapped off earlier doesn't seem so significant anymore.

Well, at least I know that if I fail at infusing myself with the branch, I've got a whole _lot_ of extra Wood Release material to work with.

Happy dreams of the Rinnegan dance in my eyes. Imagine it! The Asura Path! I've got a whole technologically advanced world's worth of stuff to draw from, just imagine the crap that I could pull with the Rinnegan!

What was I talking about before again? Something about the formation?

Eh, it couldn't have been that important.

It's not like we're going to be ambushed or whatever.

* * *

 _A/N: Feedback is much appreciated, as always._


	6. Chapter 6

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

"She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes!"

"Seidome, shut up."

"She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes!"

"The fuck are you even singing?"

"She'll be coming round the mountain, she'll be coming round the mountain when she comes!" I was, obviously, singing to pass time on the road.

In English.

I was singing in English.

Naturally my poor teammates had no idea what I was saying. Really though, it only got a reaction out of Daisuke and the merchants. Kakashi was too busy reading his porn to really care, and Ayano was as cold as always.

Oh well, at least it helped pass the time. And seeing the precious looks that the merchants and Daisuke shot me, well…

It amused me to no end, knowing that they thought that I was trying to summon the devil or something.

I knew the perfect song to fuck with them.

"Ooh eeh ooh ah ah, ting tang walla walla bing bang! Ooh eeh ooh ah ah ting tang walla walla… "

" _Would you just shut the fuck up!"_

Ah, this is what I live for. Learning ninja magic was cool, but nothing beat just plain fucking around with people.

* * *

"Yes! Love me harder! Make me yours! Cried Mushina, as Kinato pounded away at her sweet honey pot." I read from one of Kakashi's books, trying to get a reaction from Ayano.

Her eyebrow was twitching furiously.

It was working.

I had spent all of my time on the road trying to crack her aloof exterior. It was easier said than done. Say what you will about my methods, but my teammates had to trust each other implicitly. That trust won't form without friendship, and friendship won't form without Ayano's tough personality cracking.

"Kinato used his rather short… into Mushina's… and then… ice cream? And… pickles? Then Kinato shoved a… with an electric toothbrush? " I paused momentarily. I read that section again, just in case my eyes had lied to me.

And then proceeded to absolutely lose my shit.

 _The fuck had Jiraiya seen?_ I had expected perverseness, but not at this level! No really, I had read smut aloud to children for about half an hour now, and I had an entire previous life's worth of experiences, but this… Jiraiya, you have my undying respect.

The people of my old world may have been more sophisticated technologically, but in terms of kinky porn, they will never catch up to the masters of the Shinobi world.

Kakashi seemed to be thinking the same thing, "Ah yes, my favorite part of this book, and really, the whole series." He smiled fondly. "Jiraiya-sama truly is a genius, of a calibre this world has never seen."

How did he recognise that part from the little that I had read?

Actually, it was probably a pretty memorable scene.

Any sort of sex involving ice cream, pickles, and an electric toothbrush is probably pretty memorable.

Creepy.

Also, when Jiraiya says that 'Kinato's'... is rather short… well… I didn't exactly need to know that.

I also really didn't need to know that Minato and Kushina had used ice cream, pickles, and a Kami damn _electric toothbrush_ of all things to spice things up in bed.

Wait, this was possibly… just maybe… Naruto's conception?

I shall never look at him in the same way again.

Anyone conceived with the help of ice cream, pickles, and a toothbrush deserved my utmost respect.

Or my pity.

Probably both.

I am repressing that. Repressing that in the farthest recesses of my mind.

* * *

Instruments of murder fell from the sky, spinning as they just barely missed impaling me. More soon joined the first volley. Whirling slices of metal fell like rain-

"Hey! Stop that!" Daisuke shouted.

Pouting, I put my kunai back in my holster.

I had been juggling them.

I need another source of entertainment.

And possibly help of the professional kind.

* * *

Where the fuck were we going again?

"We are currently on an escort mission to Grass country." Ayano curtly replied. I blinked for a moment. Had she read my mind?

"No." It was Kakashi who answered this time. "You said that aloud."

Ah, yes. Old habits die hard, after all.

The merchants were watching me with raised eyebrows. They said nothing, but I could read it in their eyes. They were questioning my competence. Not that I blame them or anything. If I were in their position, I'd question my competence as well.

But hey! We were probably competent enough, yeah? We were Academy graduates, so we were more or less capable of handling- _Holy shit!_

 _Clang!_

I brought up my right arm with a kunai just in time to deflect a kunai speeding towards me. I threw my kunai in the general direction of where I thought it came from.

There came a sickening sound from the forest.

It was the sound of cold metal sliding into flesh.

There came a splattering noise from the forest.

It was the sound of blood splashing.

There came a dull thump from the forest.

It was the sound of a body hitting the ground.

I was strangely unbothered by the fact that I had killed someone. Was I in shock right now? My mind felt perfectly crystal clear right now though.

An ungodly scream filled the air as my kunai went through another bandit's throat.

No really, this was concerning. I suppose if I were to be a cold killer, it would be beneficial, considering my career choice. But it left a bad taste in my mouth knowing that there was no guilt at all.

I ran towards the group of bandits, kunai in hand. I ducked under the tanto swing of one of the bandits and shoved my kunai into his jaw.

Blood splattered onto my clothes. A life taken by my hand.

My mind was sharp and my hands were steady.

A thrown kunai ended another bandit's life.

Two shuriken flew out of my hands, taking wide curving paths. They found themselves lodged in two unfortunate bandits' skulls.

I became a windmill of death in the midst of the bandits. They were untrained. Their weapons were little more than fancy sticks in their hands.

My weapons were more than fancy sticks.

The blood already staining the ground could attest to that.

I dodged their strikes easily. It felt surreal, it was too easy to take lives. A kunai lodged here, and shuriken thrown there, and it was all over.

The next kunai had an explosive seal strung onto it. I threw it to my left, towards a rather large group of bandits hoping to rob the caravan while I was distracted by the other group. The kunai was thrown mostly upwards, so that it would land in the middle of the group.

Why wasn't my team guarding the caravan? They should've been able to respond to those guys.

Oh, they were too busy looking at me in horror.

The normally cheery and brash Daisuke looked at me with horror filled eyes and a gaping mouth. Like I was a monster. And perhaps I was.

The normally cold Ayano looked at me with fear. Her normally dispassionate personality was dispelled, in a favor of staring at me with a look of panicked dread. I had finally gotten through her cool exterior.

Just not in the way I wanted.

While, Daisuke and Ayano were staring at me in abject horror, Kakashi seemed entirely unperturbed. So unperturbed, in fact, that he couldn't be bothered to look away from his porn.

Even as the bandits exploded with the tag, blowing bits of what used to be human into the air, all Kakashi did was make a few hand signs. He blasted out a wind jutsu to blow away the blood. Figures, he'd only care enough to keep his book clean.

I lashed out with another kunai. It sliced through the air and found itself buried to the handle in a bandit's chest.

I Kawarimi'd with the kunai and launched myself towards another bandit, kunai in hand.

He died the instant he looked my way.

A shuriken tore through another bandit. A kunai killed another. One by one the bandits fell. With each one down came a building feeling of unease. Why did I not feel guilt? Why did I feel no sorrow for the lives lost?

It was too late now. They were all dead.

Dead by my hand, each of their souls ripped forcefully out of fragile mortal bodies.

Perhaps Kakashi was right to train me in the use of weapons rather than Jutsu. There was something magical about ending someone's life with your own hands. Feeling, through the weapon, the light leave their eyes.

I collapsed on the ground, a stinging in my chest.

* * *

When I came to, there was a soft pattering from above, and I was lying on a bed.

A shaking bed.

A shaking bed that was covered in blood.

Gross.

I groaned and sat up.

The strange shaking stemmed from the fact that I was in one of the caravans, on a cot. I opened the flap of the caravan and hopped out of the moving vehicle.

I stepped into the light rain. The heavens were mourning. The sky itself was weeping. Whether it was crying for the lives I had ended, or my lost innocence, I did not know.

The wet earth clung to the bottom of my sandals. The ground was pulling at my feet, aching for its lost children. The rain was no longer rain, but blood. Blood spilled from the bandits. Blood that I alone was responsible for spilling. The sticky earth felt like innumerable hands clutching my feet. It felt like the long lost souls of the bandits clawing at me from the depths of hell.

I could almost hear them now. Their screams of vengeance. They were calling for me. Calling for me to join them, to join them in their suffering. I deserved it. _I deserved it_ _for what I had done to them._

And when the vomit found its way out of my mouth, it was not vomit. It was a fetid sludge, the product of mashing together dozens of souls. I was left with the feeling that _this was what I had done to them._

I had turned them into little more than a foul stain on the ground.

The feeling was not a good one.

It left a sour taste in my mouth.

And a bitter hole in my heart.

Finally, the guilt that had alluded me during my fight with my bandits had found me.

It was not a welcome feeling.

* * *

 _A/N: Feedback is, of course, much appreciated._


	7. Chapter 7

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

You know, I've been thinking.

Well, of course I'm thinking, everyone's always thinking about _something._

But I've been thinking about stuff.

Vague.

I've been thinking about strength. I've been thinking about it ever since I had murdered those bandits. It was too easy to die. Those two dozen or so bandits all died by my hand. And it hadn't even been difficult for me.

I never want to be on the receiving end of a blade.

Or a nasty ninjutsu for that matter.

But how do avoid something like that? I could become strong. Strong enough to pulverize anyone that dares stand my way. But becoming that strong has its drawbacks. By becoming strong, you gain notoriety. With that fame, you paint a giant target on your back.

Becoming famous is just _asking_ for someone to assassinate you. When you're famous, any dumbass can get their hands on a Bingo Book, and since you're so famous, all your skills are in there already. Those guys have all the time in the world to think of a way to counter your skills.

So back to that question. How do I avoid death? Or, more specifically, how do I avoid a death caused by sharpened steel.

Immortality?

No, not that. Being unkillable does not imply that you are invincible. Hidan was immortal. Hidan was buried under a pile of rocks, slowly declining from a lack of nutrition.

Invincibility?

But how does one achieve invincibility?

Perhaps the Steel Release and a ridiculous amount of chakra? But a skilled Genjutsu user could convince you to deactivate it. Perhaps some sort of chakra and kinetic energy absorber in the form of a seal? But seals degrade over time, and can be countered. Invincibility is perhaps impractical.

But then how can I avoid being murdered?

Through pure strength perhaps. If one is strong enough to crush all opposition, then death by assassin is a situation that will never come to pass.

But this loops back to what was said earlier. If I become strong, I become famous. And if I am famous, my skills are on display. If my skills are on display, someone can come up with a counter. If someone comes up with a counter, I die.

No, I don't need strength. Strength alone will not make me unkillable.

I need flexibility.

Yes.

If I'm strong, I can crush most opposition. But if I'm flexible, I can out-maneuver those that I can't crush. If I am flexible, I can make counters for the counters that people come up with.

So my question has been answered.

I need a combination of strength and flexibility.

But if I can figure out immortality…

Well… let's cross that bridge when we get to it.

Of course, I could also be entirely wrong in my approach to untouchability. There was, of course, the Will of Fire crap that Konoha seemed so intent on shoving down our throats. Maybe that had some merit?

Friendship _is_ magic, after all.

* * *

The team wasn't the same after my violent dealings with the bandits.

Hey, don't look at me like that! They were totally trying to murder me! And the caravan guys. And the rest of the team. But mostly me! Besides, my teammates were being dumb. They _chose_ this life the day they signed up for the Academy.

Of course, most children didn't realise that when they attended the Academy, they were being trained to be violent murder machines.

Also, I'm pretty sure Ayano has shinobi parents, so she probably felt pressured to be a ninja too.

Also, I'm pretty sure Daisuke was an orphan. Lots of orphans are sent off to the Academy. They weren't _forced_ to go, but orphans who attended the Academy received a significantly larger stipend than those who chose to go to regular school. It wasn't directly said, but was pretty blatant that the increased stipend was to provide incentive for kids to learn to be cold killers for hire.

Also, with all the Will of Fire crap and the propaganda that Konoha dropped into children's books, the kids were pretty much brainwashed and ready to go by the time they were old enough to sign up for the Academy.

What was I talking about again?

Hold on, _scroll up the page, scan the chapter a little bit, it shouldn't be too hard to find it, there's only around seven hundred words so far in this chapter-_ Aha!

My teammates were being dumbasses!

Daisuke was giving me the cold shoulder, and Ayano was even more aloof than she normally was, if that were possible.

Seriously, they acted like _I_ was the one in the wrong here!

Did they not see those bandits! They were a threat to the clients! And a threat to _us!_ They had pointy weapons and were about to stick their blades up our spines if we didn't do it first!

That's how I'm going to justify my slaughter anyways.

Nope. Not thinking about it. If I think about it, I remember. If I remember, I start seeing it again. My weapons, indiscriminately tearing through their bodies. They fell like rag dolls. It was disgusting. Red. _Red_. Oh god, so much red. Their blood stained the ground, watered it, like the rain that fell soon afterwards their lifeless bodies falling to the ground, their soulless, glassy eyes looking at me in horror. They were _staring_ at me. Oh god, their _eyes_ , they were dragging me into Hell, those eyes. They were suffering, they were begging for something, _anything._ But I took it from them. I bled the light away in front of them. I _stole their souls away from their fragile mortal flesh_. _I didn't just kill, I_ _ **massacred, I slaughtered them, butchered them, like animals! I DESECRATED THEIR BODIES LIKE-**_

Man, I thought I said that I wouldn't think about it.

What was I talking about again?

This seems to be happening a lot. Do I have mental issues? I swear to god, if fucking _Orochimaru_ , fucked with my head, just like he screwed with the rest of my body, I will fucking _murder_ him. I won't just kill him, I'll _rip him apart. Just like he tore my body apart over the course of seven years._ _ **Seven years. That's seven years of my life! And he just STOLE IT! HE STOLE WHAT WAS MINE-**_

 _Slap!_

That was the sound of my hand meeting my face. I keep on going out on tangents like this. Maybe I do have issues. _Dammit! I've got to stop saying shit like that! If I do, I'll start screaming inside my head, and then with my habit of saying things aloud, I'll scream bloody murder while other people are still around. Then they'll think I'm crazy. Oh Kami, what if they lock me up? What if they put me in an insane asylum. I fucking refuse, to go back to an area sterilised. It reminds me of_ _ **Orochimaru, the BASTARD THAT-**_

 _Slap!_

I've got to stop doing that.

So! Back to the topic at hand! Even though most of my thoughts thus far have been little thoughts that have snowballed into somewhat maniacal tangents, but whatever! Is there a reason for that? Maybe the bandit massacre unbalanced me mentally more than I thought? Or maybe-

Even when I try to get back on topic, I can't.

I _do_ have issues.

I _don't_ have issues.

But you know who _does_ have issues?

Every-fucking-body else! Daisuke and Ayano couldn't get over the fact that I murdered a couple guys! Boo fucking hoo! Go cry about the injustice of it to the Hokage, why won't you! The same Kami damn Hokage that approved the mission!

And the caravan dudes! Seriously! It's like they've never seen a nine year old brutally slaughter a few dozen bandits before. Honestly!

Except for that one guy. That one guy who was currently walking near the back of the caravans. I learned about an hour ago that he was the guy that put me in the cot after I collapsed.

Nice guy.

And Kakashi-sensei! Don't even get me started on him! He fucking… he… fucking…

What did he do again?

Now that I think about it, he was pretty chill throughout this. No doubt, he had seen worse. Hell, he'd _done_ worse himself. I could berate him for doing nothing with the bandits, but he's supposed to be our teacher. I guess that could be considered practical training, you know, getting me acquainted with the field. I have no doubts that he would step in the second things seemed to be getting out of hand.

Of course, what would make for better practical training would be _team training._ You know, when the _entire team_ gets involved instead of one guy doing it all? Seriously, are those kunai just for _decoration_ or something?

So yeah. Kakashi and that one caravan guy get a thumbs up from me, and everybody else gets a fuck you.

* * *

Getting the rest of the way to Kusa would take about a week at the civilian speed that we were going. Getting back to Konoha at shinobi speeds would take another week or or so.

It was extremely awkward to be around my team right now. Daisuke still was afraid of me, and Ayano would basically ignore me.

Well, she would ignore me even before I killed those bandits, but yeah…

Kakashi didn't help at all. He was too busy reading porn to strike up a conversation. I found that kind of strange. For someone who supposedly values teamwork and camaraderie so much, you'd think he'd make some effort to repair the rift that had appeared in his team.

Maybe he thought that if he just ignored it, it would all blow over in a bit. Or maybe since he implicitly trusted his teammates, he expected us to do the same, no matter how cold we were to one another.

In any case, I had no teammates to entertain myself with, and no caravan guys would even think about even looking in my general vicinity. Honestly! It's not like I'm a monster or anything!

Well, except for one of the caravan guys. I was bored a few days ago, and I remembered that, hey! There's a guy who isn't freaked out by you, and isn't too busy reading porn to talk!

So I looked for that guy that put me in the cot.

I found him easily enough, I knew he tended to stay around the caravan in the back. The same caravan that he put me in when I collapsed.

Huh. Were those his sleeping quarters? He put a kid who just murdered a group of bandits and was covered in blood on his own bed. Huh.

Nice guy.

No really, nice guy.

Anyways, once I got to him, we talked for a bit. His name was Yujin. The reason he wasn't afraid of me after I killed those bandits, he explained, was because he used to be a shinobi like me, until he took a kunai to the knee. This debilitating injury forced him out of the ninja corps. Now, he was just a simple merchant.

He used to be a shinobi like me.

Until he took a kunai to the knee.

How hilarious.

Of course, the second I heard that he used to be a shinobi, I asked Yujin if he could teach me any Jutsu, preferably of the lightning variety. It was probably rude to remind someone who had a traumatising injury of their life before, but eh. He just laughed and said that he knew one that he could teach me.

He taught me a C-Rank Jutsu, that was freaking _awesome_. Lightning Release: Lightning Beast Tracking Fang. Ignoring the rather long name that sounded like someone was trying too hard, it was just… freaking _awesome._ I'm sure my opinion of the jutsu will change later on, as I plan on being S-Rank one day, but for now-

It was freaking _awesome._

First you'd make some hand signs, channeling lightning chakra into your hand, and then the lightning expands into the form of a hound, _that can be controlled over a distance through a Kami damned lightning bolt!_

How cool is that!?

After learning the jutsu, very quickly thanks to my freakish chakra, I spent around half an hour dicking around with a hound made out of lightning, attached to my hand by a long leash in the form of a _lightning bolt._

I can now say without a doubt that I am the ninjutsu specialist on the team, as I am currently the only member of my team with a jutsu outside of the Academy Three.

Yes.

Yujin, words cannot express how thankful I am.

No really, there's something magical about learning jutsu, even if it is a C-Rank, I'm sure that this jutsu will forever hold a place in my heart. It is, after all, my first elemental jutsu.

Yujin seemed flabbergasted that, one, I managed to learn the jutsu so quickly, and two, I had enough chakra to maintain it for so long.

"Kid… I wish I was like you when I was a shinobi." Yujin seemed nostalgic. He had a misty look in his eyes. He was likely remembering his time as a ninja. I feel kind of bad now for making him relive painful memories.

Lacking a tactful response, I went with the go-to answer I used as a teenager, "Yeah… "

We went inside the caravan and played shogi for the rest of the day.

Well, the rest of the day after I finished terrorising the other caravan dudes with my new lightning jutsu.

That probably didn't help the rift between my team. Watching me cackling wickedly while screwing around with a hound made out of lightning probably did nothing to curb their thoughts of me as a cold killer.

Yujin just shook his head in exasperation, lead me inside the caravan, and pulled out the shogi board.

Nice guy.

…

He was _damn_ good a shogi.

* * *

 _A/N: I spent around twenty minutes on the wiki looking for a lightning jutsu that was cool, and at the same time, not that high a rank. So there you have it! A C-Rank, legit jutsu. I also spent some time scrambling around the wiki for a reasonable explanation for Seidome's OP chakra control and reserves. I think I've got one though, so yeah._

 _As always, constructive criticism is much appreciated._


	8. Chapter 8

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

Wait a minute…

Wasn't I supposed to feel pain from using jutsu too much? Man, I've got to remember to get that checked out sometime. Maybe when we get back to Konoha in a week or two.

Anyways, I was dicking around with my lightning hounds for like, an hour yesterday. That was easily the most I had ever used my chakra in a single sitting.

Then, why wasn't I feeling any pain? Could it be that maybe, just maybe, I don't have to worry about chakra pains anymore? There was only one way to find out. I stood up, the stool that I was sitting on tipping backwards dangerously. I payed it no mind as it crashed to the floor.

I gathered lightning chakra in my hand and channelled it outwards into the form of a hound.

No pain.

The hound ran in a zigzag pattern around the caravan I was in, its leash of lightning following its path.

Still no pai- _Ow!_

Ridiculous.

Yujin, with whom I was playing another round of shogi with, was rather bewildered at my action and sudden mood changes. Rather understandably so, as I went from surprised, to disbelieving, to happy, to slightly depressed.

His eyes were still on my conjured lightning hound. Taking advantage of this, I quickly switched around the pieces of our shogi board.

"Checkmate!" I shouted. Yujin whipped around and stared at the board. Where before he was winning by a considerable margin, now his king was inexplicably in a corner of the board, surrounded by pieces of mine he had long since captured.

Yujin just shook his head in amusement.

* * *

We were only about two more days' journey from Kusa. The time that I didn't spend with Yujin was spent awkwardly guarding the caravans with my teammates.

They still acted like I was a monster.

I wasn't exactly hurt by their actions, just kind of disappointed. Here I was, expecting a couple people who would watch my back, and happily coat their hands in blood beside me. I had fantasies about it! Seriously, just imagine it! Just a couple friends going on a happy little murder spree!

I should have known that that was an unrealistic expectation.

I mean, even if I wasn't _really_ expecting cold murder machines, I would've hoped that the Academy taught them better than this. Maybe I should suggest some new curriculum that Konoha could implement. Maybe have the Academy students practise murdering on small animals, then work their way up?

Whatever. In any case, the Academy clearly does a shitty job.

Well, maybe not too shitty. I was trained by the Academy too, and I completely _obliterated_ those bandits. A group of two dozen or so bandits were absolutely slaughtered by a fresh Genin.

Does chakra really help that much?

Stupid question, of _course_ it helps that much. Freaking Maito Guy and Rock Lee with their insane masochism-fueled training regime. There's no way that could happen without some serious chakra shenanigans going on.

If crazy, masochism-fueled training sessions are the key to S-Rank, and subsequently becoming good enough to avoid being murdered, then perhaps I should start.

But first, I need more jutsu.

I'm a ninjutsu specialist, there's not much I can do to train myself into the ground. My lightning hound isn't taxing enough on my chakra to be of much use in training myself chakra-wise. It'd be like constantly lifting tiny weights.

So, I need more jutsu. Preferably of the high ranking, chakra-taxing variety. Unfortunately, Yujin had always been more a weapons sort of guy, so he didn't have very many jutsu learned, and absolutely no other jutsu of lightning.

So I need to ask Kakashi.

Which is why I'm out here walking beside the caravans, awkwardly tip toeing around my teammates, instead of playing shogi with Yujin.

Over the course of the last five minutes, I had been slowly inching closer to Kakashi, who was reading his porn still. Right now, I was right next to him. I opened my mouth and prepared to ask him for jutsu.

 _Thump!_

Only to have a scroll thrown at me.

Not looking away from his porn, Kakashi spoke, "I already knew what you were going to ask. There's a technique in the scroll."

I raised an eyebrow at him, "You're not going to teach me yourself?"

Kakashi, still not looking away from his book, said, "You don't need much help, clearly. Consider me impressed that you managed to learn that other jutsu so quickly. This one may take you some time, though."

My eyebrow raised further. He was acknowledging my skills? Was he… was he complimenting me? Or did he just not feel like actually teaching me?

Kakashi giggled, "Besides, I just got to this good part." He peeked over the top of his book, "I can't leave now, the suspense will kill me!" He flicked his one eye quickly over to my teammates, then back to me, just barely slow enough for me to catch.

Ah, I see. Me being around is causing quite a bit of tension. Tension with both the clients and my teammates. He gave me the jutsu to practise so that I would be away from the group, and so that things might calm down around here.

He also might need to stay and make sure things don't go FUBAR around here, but it's probably mostly to relieve the tension.

Nodding, I walked to the end of the line of caravans, and hopped on top of the one furthest back. Kakashi, nodding his assent, went back to reading his book. I opened up the scroll and took a preliminary look at the jutsu Kakashi gave me.

It was a lightning jutsu, of course. Lightning Rat Tremor. I have absolutely no idea why it was named after rats, and tremors for that matter, because nothing in the technique had anything to do with either of those things. It discharged several destructive discs of electricity. And get this, _it was homing._

It was technically for all ranges, although since it got rather explosive, it wasn't really a recommended jutsu for short range combat, unless you were _really_ fast.

It was surprisingly well thought out. My lightning hounds were meant to be a mostly supportive jutsu, serving as a non chakra-taxing combat jutsu when you were getting low on chakra.

The Rat Tremor was a jutsu designed for open combat, and it would probably serve as my go-to for straight-up fighting. It had my long-range covered, as well as my mid-range along with my lightning hounds. The only thing that was left was short range.

Which might be covered by the Chidori, which Kakashi hinted at at the bottom of the scroll.

 _P.S, If you have the aptitude for it, I might have a short-range A-Rank jutsu for you. I'll teach you when we get back to the village._

Never let it be said that Kakashi was a bad sensei.

Well, except for the part where he taught me _absolutely fucking nothing for the first two months as my sensei!_

We'll conveniently ignore the time where I ripped apart bandits with nothing but weapons. You know, the part where I actually put Kakashi's teachings to use.

Why was he being so nice all the sudden?

Could it be that he finally _fucking_ saw that the only thing I'm good at is Ninjutsu?

Or maybe… or maybe… oh _balls._

 _Mega-balls._

The Chunin exams are in two months.

They're being held in Kumo.

We're being prepared as lambs for the slaughter.

It makes sense now though. Kakashi was probably meant to fail every team until the one with Naruto and Sasuke popped up. We went, and since we _sort of_ showed cooperation at the end, he had to pass us. Ayano had shinobi parents, so if she went and told her parents what happened, they'd know that what we did would've passed the test, and they would've known that Kakashi was bullshitting them.

Since Kakashi was stuck with another team, he was ordered to pawn us off to the Chunin exams as quickly as possible. If we made a decent showing and passed, great! It showed that even Konoha's non-clan shinobi were still good. If we died, still great! If we survived, but didn't pass, disappointing, but workable. There were still several more Chunin exams before Naruto and Sasuke graduated.

We were, after all, less valuable students than the Nine-Tails Jinchuuriki and the Last Uchiha.

Who were we, really? Daisuke, an average orphan. Ayano, a shinobi child, but it wasn't like they were that rare, really, in a frickin' _shinobi village_. And me, an escaped experiment of Orochimaru's, probably with a limited shelf life. Who knows what sort of life-span shortening body modifications Orochimaru performed?

In the end, we were being shunted aside for other students with more perceived potential.

Now that I think about it, that's why Kakashi had drilled us so hard in the beginning, and was now being nice.

Contrary to how he was depicted in canon, Kakashi _pushed_ us in training. To the point where I'd drag myself home and fall asleep on the floor. He didn't really feel like training us, but since we were basically getting a death sentence because of him, he wanted to give us the best chance possible to survive.

That's also why he made and gave me the jutsu scroll, that's why he was offering to teach me the Chidori later.

Because he felt guilty.

It wasn't his fault, really. He was acting on the orders of the village. He even saw fit to break his lazy character and properly train us. I've been giving him a lot of shit over not teaching me any jutsu, but the thing is, the skills that he _did_ teach me, Taijutsu and weapon usage, were staples of shinobi combat. I'd need those skills to properly function as a shinobi.

It wasn't even really the village's fault. They were making the most intelligent decision based on the potential of the students.

Too bad I'm not quite going to roll with their plans. The village probably expects us to die horrible deaths at the Chunin exams. They're going to be wrong.

This sacrificial lamb is going to murder the guys at the altar.

Brutally murder.

* * *

It was late at night. It technically wasn't even night anymore, I'm pretty sure it's sometime early morning, like one o'clock or something.

In the palm of my hand, lightning chakra crackled and spun impossibly fast in disc of pure destruction.

From atop the caravan, I threw the disc into the forest to the left.

The disc of lightning left my hands much slower than I would have liked it to. The disc wobbled dangerously and sputtered out pathetically in the air, not even reaching the treeline.

Kami _dammit!_

The formation of lightning chakra into the correct form was slow. Despite the extra time taken to form the disc, the chakra was still sloppily formed, resulting in the horrid execution of the jutsu. On top of that, this was only one disc. The jutsu normally involved several.

The Lightning Rat Tremor is _way_ harder than my lightning hounds.

I shouldn't have expected every jutsu to be as easy as the lightning hounds. It was a C-Rank jutsu. On top of that, the hounds were one of the more basic and low-end C-Ranks. I threw a kunai to mark where the disc lost momentum and tried again.

The formation of chakra was, again, slow and imperfect. A painful pang that I associated with chakra usage pounded in my chest. The disc was launched outwards, it reached about half a metre more than the last attempt.

 _Progress._

Over the course of the night (morning?), I span countless discs of chakra, I felt countless pricks of pain. I finally got my disc to be relatively practical in combat. The lone disc reached the forest now, and if I threw it above the trees, it crackle well into the forest.

With the caravan having stopped for the night, I had only one section of forest to practise on. With me having more or less gotten my disc to a usable level, I had began to toss them at trees and watch them explode in a shower of sparkling chakra.

I love explosions.

Though, when I finally get around to adding more disks, there should be even _more_ explosions.

I _love_ explosions.

People started climbing tiredly out of the caravans, many of them glaring at me. The one whose caravan I was sitting on gave me a particularly dirty look.

I wonder why that was?

Oh yeah, I was dicking around with lightning chakra, which is notorious for loud crackling noises. As if that wasn't enough, I had begun adding explosions into the mix later on.

They probably didn't have a very restful night.

They _really_ didn't like me. Not only was I screwing around when they were trying to sleep, the fact that I was chasing them around this hounds made out of lightning a few days ago didn't help.

They were glaring pretty hard at me, but since I was a ninja, they were too meek to actually say anything about my behaviour.

Whatever. That's their problem that they can't handle my awesomeness.

We should reach Kusa by the next day.

* * *

 _A/N: Review? Feedback would be great._


	9. Chapter 9

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

I waved goodbye to Yujin as he walked into Kusa with the other caravan dudes. He turned and waved back at me, causing the caravan dudes near him to also turn backwards. I smirked and gathered a small amount of lightning chakra to spark in my hands. The caravan dudes shivered and quickly turned around.

There really was nothing like traumatising people.

Our mission complete, we ran back to Konoha, this time at shinobi speeds. We'd get back to the village in a few days, a week at most.

Assuming nothing went wrong of course.

 _Of course._

So, something went wrong, of course.

Of course, that's just the way that the universe functions.

Of course.

Have you ever said a word or phrase so many times that it becomes meaningless?

 _Ofcourseofcourseofcourseofcourseofcourse…_

So, because the universe hates us, four days into our journey a few bandits were waiting on the road for us. They stood in a rather sloppy formation, with their weapons unsheathed. They tightened like coils as we approached, waiting to-

 _Crackle! Boom!_

Until I sent a Lightning Rat Tremor disc at them, that is.

I purposely threw the disc way off to the side so that I could watch its homing properties. It was just so satisfying knowing that no matter where you threw the thing, it would always hit the target. Of course, I wouldn't pull that kind of stuff in a real fight, but these were untrained bandits, so I felt the need to show off a little bit.

I was still working on the Rat Tremor. I could only use one disc reliably. I'll train more once we get back to Konoha.

Speaking of what I'll do when we get back to Konoha, I can't wait for the Chidori. There was all sorts of bullshit I could with the Chidori and a shape change. Even just the plain Chidori was still badass, although the whole tunnel vision thing…

Wait a minute…

Why the hell was Kakashi planning on teaching me the Chidori? It's not like I can negate the tunnel vision with a special magic eyeball or something…

Oh wait…

Huh, I kind of forgot about that.

Will my mechanical eyeball even negate the tunnel vision? It's not organic, so maybe it won't be affected by the high speed? Is that how tunnel vision works? Whatever. I'm getting the Chidori, and it's gonna be badass.

I'm sure as hell going to need it for the suicide mission of a Chunin exam I'll be attending in two months.

 _Clang!_

It was only through reflexes that I managed to block the blade slicing at me. Did I really get that distracted? Whatever, there were a few stray bandits that managed to survive my initial Rat Tremor. The bandits were too close to comfortably use the Rat Tremor again, so I sent out a lightning hound. The hound rocketed out of my hands and tore through the bandit in front of me. It then _bolted_ towards the other bandits and quickly ripped the few bandits left to shreds. Get it? It _bolted_ towards the other bandits? Eh? Eh?

It's a allusion to a lightning bolt, for any of you dinguses out there who didn't get it.

See, it _bolted_ to the bandits?

It _thundered_ from my hands to the bandits?

I bet it was rather _shocking_ for them.

It was a _positively electrifying_ experience.

I need to stop.

…

It's a good thing that they didn't put up much _resistance._

 _Ohm_ my Kami.

This is rather… _en-lightning._

I started snickering.

I noticed Ayano and Daisuke were looking at me strangely. They didn't see that I noticed them staring.

Ah, the perks of being able to move your mechanical right eye independently from your left one. The same right eye that's under a Genjutsu that, with a little bit of chakra moulding, can be manipulated to stare straight ahead while the eye under it looks elsewhere.

So yeah, I saw them staring. I was really getting tired of this bullshit. Yeah, I just coldly disregarded the lives of a couple bandits, but they were ready to kill us!

It's not that I wanted to test out my new jutsu on live enemies or anything. No, definitely not that.

Ayano and Daisuke just needed to chill. It's not like they haven't seen me kill before. And that time was way more up close and brutal than this time!

Er actually, last time, I just slit their throats for the most part. I threw one explosive kunai, and that was it for explosions in that fight.

Are kunai and shuriken to the face counted as more brutal than an explosion to the face?

Why am I questioning this? I _shouldn't_ be questioning this because it shouldn't _matter_ how brutal a kill is! A kill is a kill!

Honestly, these guys weren't fit to be ninja. I'm starting to think that the village had the right idea, planning on sending us off to Kumo to die.

Except the part where I'm dragged down with these idiots.

* * *

C-Rank mission pay! Oh hell yes! Ryo, how much I missed you! Forty-thousand ryo! Come to daddy!

Hey, the Academy student orphan's stipend wasn't all that impressive, and I had used almost all of my savings on shinobi gear in preparation for the mission.

As soon as turned in a mission report to the administrative office, my teammates bolted off to their homes as quickly as possible. I'm not sure whether to feel happy that I can make people uncomfortable to this degree, or depressed at my awful friend-making skills.

I'll settle for happy.

Although my happy mood somewhat dissipated when I saw a rather short blonde kid getting bullied by a few other children. I could faintly hear jeering from where I was, and I could see them kicking the blonde.

 _Naruto._

I blinked at the sight of him.

I hadn't thought of him in a while. Probably not a good thing that I wasn't thinking of him, considering the entire world revolves around him. Actually this is the perfect opportunity. I smirked at the plan that was forming.

Step One: Walk up to the kids. I'm going to ignore the fact that they're all around the same age as me, and one of them is actually taller than I am.

Step Two: Go through the beginning stages for a Rat Tremor disc to scare the kids away.

Step Three: Bask in Naruto's praise of my cool jutsu.

Step Four: Bullshit up some speech about friendship and not judging people before you meet them.

Step Five: Feel satisfied, now that I've gained the loyalty of the Chosen One, and an eventual demigod.

I silently made my way towards the kids. I was an official shinobi with two months of Kakashi's _actual_ training. These kids were Academy students, maybe. Were they civilians?

In any case, they never heard me coming. Only Naruto saw me behind the kids. His eyes widened as a loomed over them.

"My dad says that he's a loser… yeah!"

"Yeah, he… uh… smells funny!"

"NERD! You stupid… uh… blondie!"

Or at least that's what I thought they said. I was too busy focusing on gathering lightning jutsu in my hand to really listen to what they were shouting at Naruto. So I just filled in the blanks. I assume they were just shouting some generic Fanfiction bully-speak, so yeah…

The loud sparking of lightning chakra made the kids pause. They turned around to look at me. I made sure to look as terrifying as possible. I poured chakra into my right eye, so that the mechanical eyeball shone brightly, the light being visible even through the Genjutsu. I let out a tiny amount of killing intent. The amount I could let out was rather pathetic, but to inexperienced children? It was at least enough to put them on edge.

So what they saw when they turned around was a guy with a glowing eye, with a spinning disc of lightning in his hand.

Oh yeah, and a Konoha headband.

The screamed loudly, and booked it. The moment they left, I stopped putting extra chakra into my eye and let the lightning in my hand fade away. I dispelled the minute amount of killing intent that I had managed to amass.

Naruto looked at me with fear in his eyes. His bottom lip was twitching dangerously and his eyes brimmed with tears.

He looked adorable.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Naruto beat me to it.

"That was so COOL! You were all quiet and creepy and stuff, and them you did lightning thing! And that glowing eye thing! It was so creepy, but it was so COOL! You're a shinobi right? That must be so _awesome._ I'm gonna be a ninja too! I'm in the stupid Academy right now, but I'm gonna graduate and be an awesome ninja! I'm gonna be the Hokage one day, dattebayo!" Quivering lips somehow immediately morphed into a happy grin. His eyes, only seconds ago full of unshed tears, somehow were completely void of moisture.

I struggled with his enthusiasm for a minute before answering a best as I could, "Yeah, being a shinobi is… pretty cool. And I'm sure you'll make for a wonderful Hokage one day."

He suddenly seemed nervous, "You really mean it? Do you really think I'll be a good Hokage one day? All the villagers say I'm a demon… can… can a demon be Hokage? You don't think I'm a demon… do you?"

Oh man, here it is. The generic Fanfiction cliche of an insecure Naruto. Here is where I gain the loyalty of this guy.

"I make my own judgements of people, kid. I'm not about to call you demon just because some stupid villagers do," I rolled my eyes, hopefully that would really cement the idea that I don't agree with the villagers and win me some points with the jinchuuriki. "What's your name?"

With wide eyes, he answered, "Naruto."

I smirked, "Want to go grab some food, future Hokage, Naruto?"

His jaw dropped in disbelief. No doubt, nobody but the Third Hokage had ever spoken kind words to him. Having assurance from someone other than him must be hugely impactful. Of course, Naruto had his priorities straight. He could pour his heart out to me later. Now though-

"Hey, have you ever been to Ichiraku Ramen?"

* * *

Hear that?

That's the sound of my poor paycheck, screaming in horror, being sucked into the deceptively-friendly hands of the Ichiraku's.

Hey, at least it was pretty _damn_ good ramen.

Naruto wasn't joking when he said that this stuff was the food of the gods. I had a bowl of miso ramen in front of me right now, and it was _heavenly._ Naruto could be seen, busying himself with scarfing down his eleventh bowl of ramen.

I was the poor unfortunate soul that had foolishly offered to treat him to ramen. C-Rank mission pay was decent, but at the rate he was inhaling his ramen, I wouldn't be surprised if I barely had enough to pay my rent this month.

Between vigorous slurps of ramen, Naruto relayed what had happened to a busy Ayame, who could be seen rushing about with pots and bowls of ramen broth.

"And then he pulled out this super cool lightning jutsu!" He excitedly yelled. "And then, and then, he had this creepy eye-glowy thing! And then they ran away!"

"That was nice of him." Ayame, stirring a pot of ramen, smiled. "So, you're a shinobi, Seidome-san?"

I put down my chopsticks for a minute, "Yup. Seidome, student of Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan, and member of Genin Team… Team… " Wait a minute, what was our team number? I wasn't paying attention during team assignments, so yeah… actually, that could've been problematic during team assignments. If our sensei had been anyone other than Kakashi, I would've had no idea which Jonin to go to.

Or maybe not so problematic. I could've just followed Daisuke and Ayano.

Ayame gestured for me to continue, "Genin Team…"

"Yeah, that's the thing," I said, sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck, "I wasn't really paying attention during team assignments, so I don't actually know my team number… " This is awkward.

Ayame raised an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that! It could be a lot worse!"

Naruto looked at me in bewilderment, "How could it be worse?"

"I could've not known my teammates'... names… huh."

"Don't tell me you actually… "

"At the team assignments, I referred to them in my head as 'Teammate One,' and Teammate Two,'" I shamefully admitted.

Ayame just laughed at my admission.

 _Thump!_

Naruto face-faulted to the ground.

Huh. I didn't know people actually did that.

* * *

 _A/N: The title for this story is just a placeholder, it's Latin for, 'Look! I am here!' Expect it to change at some point._


	10. Chapter 10

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

"Again!"

The sound of chirping birds filled the air as lightning chakra burst from my fingertips as a white mass of sparkling electricity.

Until it fizzled out rather anticlimactically, that is.

"Again!"

Kami, Kakashi is a _slave driver._ While my teammates were being drilled in Taijutsu and weapon slinging by one of Kakashi's shadow clones, I was being taught the Chidori.

"Again!"

And _fucking hell_ is it frustrating.

I've been at this for _weeks_ now, and I had failed to maintain the Chidori for more than a few seconds. I've been training for the Chidori for a month and two weeks to be exact. _I didn't have time._ The Chunin exams was in two weeks! I'm going to freaking _die_ without a good jutsu to defend myself in short range combat.

Sasuke had to train with it for a month before the Chunin exams tournament. And that was _with_ the bullfuckery that was the Sharingan, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that I wasn't picking it up as quickly. I was hoping that, with my chakra control that had been praised by all of the Academy teachers, I would be able to learn the Chidori quickly.

"Again!"

No such luck. Clearly either the Academy had extraordinarily low standards, or the Chidori is just _that_ hard. Probably a combination of both.

"Again!"

At least chakra exhaustion probably won't be an issue for me. I had created countless sort of Chidoris, and I hadn't even felt my reserves dip at all. I'm making steady, if slow, progress with the countless Chidori's I can pump out on a regular basis. Although now that I think about it, the only reason that I wasn't feeling the drain with the countless Chidori's I'm making is because I'm making them improperly. Kakashi told me I'm not focusing my chakra enough, so I guess that means I not putting enough in and compressing it enough for anything to happen.

"Again!"

Now that I think about it, I've _never_ felt chakra exhaustion, only the pain in my chest. Speaking of that pain, I _really_ have to get that checked out some time. It's not like it's that difficult to arrange a check-up, it's just that I keep forgetting.

"Again!"

My forgetting to arrange a check-up is probably due to me not exactly caring about the pains. I am _slightly_ concerned about the pains, but they haven't really gotten worse over time, so…

"Again!"

The pain does get worse when I'm using the Rat Tremor. I assume it gets worse after a more chakra-taxing jutsu, but that doesn't explain the strange absence of pain that I experienced when first learning the lightning hounds.

"Again!"

It'd really suck if the pain did get worse when using bigger jutsu. Then it would be _really_ painful if I were using a jutsu that was hard on the reserves. I'd never get to use anything like Naruto's Rasenshuriken without feeling ridiculous amounts of pain.

"Again!"

With the Rat Tremor though, I'm not using it to its full capacity. Right now, I've gotten shakily up to three discs. The chest pains have steadily increased in intensity with the added discs. Will I ever be able to use the Rat Tremor at its full capacity?

"Again!"

Hopefully. You can be trained to ignore pain to an extent, so yeah…

"Again!"

Lightning formed in my hands, much more steadily than the other times. I looked downwards.

It was beautiful.

This time, my Chidori was much more solid. It formed easier, and just felt better overall.

I was aware of a small prickling sensation. At first, it felt just like any of my other chakra-associated pains, but it just didn't go away. The prickling grew as I fought to keep the Chidori stable. The pain throbbed painfully in my chest, ebbing and flowing with my heartbeat. It grew steadily.

Before I knew it, I was on the ground.

I was gasping for breath. The pain wasn't limited to my chest anymore, I felt it in my arms, my legs, through my eyes. It felt like a bucket of molten steel Kawarimi'd with my blood.

Blood.

Oh man, there was quite a bit of blood.

As in, I was painting the ground red.

The loud chirping and bright flashes of the Chidori only served to irritate my already aching ears and eye.

It was agony.

It was beautiful.

* * *

"Your chakra system is fucked up as hell." The doctor eloquently told me.

I was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to various medical devices. I raised an eyebrow.

"Is there no better way you could have phrased that?"

"That was the most accurate way to describe it: fucked up. The only way it could possibly be more fucked up is if part of it were literally broken."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had a functioning chakra system.

"No, seriously! Not just your chakra system either! Your entire body is fucked up! Half of your organs have mechanical implants, and your right hand is chock full of mechanical bullcrap, complete with random artificial tenketsu!"

I still see no problem with this. It could have been worse, considering the fact that I was Orochimaru's plaything for six years.

"And get this: your chakra fucking _regenerates_ with pain!"

Wut?

"I've never seen anything like it! For whatever _fucking_ reason, your body pumps out more chakra when you're in pain! Any time you're missing any chakra at all, your body subconsciously mutilates itself to produce more! It's fucking insane!"

That's… crazy.

My body is like a giant well of chakra, with pain acting as a bucket to draw out the water.

I really _am_ a Ninjutsu specialist. There would be literally no better way to focus that chakra potential than becoming a jutsu cannon. Even if I wanted to choose differently, the village would probably force me to become a NInjutsu guy.

That's probably why all the Jinchuurikis rely heavily on Ninjutsu in their fight. Or did the villages just brainwash everybody?

All of the famous people in the history texts are Ninjutsu cannons. They're famed for being able to cause ridiculous amounts of damage to the world. I guess children look at those guys, and think: I want to be like them.

They got me to. But jutsus are just so cool! Explosions solve everything!

In any case though, I guess I finally got my chakra pains checked out. It did make sense. The Chidori was draining as _hell,_ so my body was breaking itself down to make more chakra. I've got to train myself to only fuck around with pain if I _actually_ need chakra.

"And don't even get me _started_ on your chakra itself! It just feels… like absolute shit! It's _wrong._ Like the Kyuubi's, but… not… quite… It's just, _negative._ "

Did this follow the logic of anything in the Naruto series? Alright, so we're looking for magical chakra monster, that feels like negativity and can recharge on pain. I'm also guessing some sort of fast healing mechanism involved, since I recovered from my body literally _mutilating_ itself to get enough chakra to stay topped off while using a Chidori.

So as far as bijuu are concerned, we've got Shukaku to Kurama. None of them have pain-related chakra regeneration. So our chakra monster _probably_ isn't a bijuu. Unless it's a piece of the Juubi? I'm pretty sure that the Juubi doesn't work like that, but it's sort of got the regeneration covered? Besides, where would Orochimaru get a piece of the Juubi, or any of the Juubi's chakra from?

Nah, not the Juubi then. What other chakra monsters are there? Unless it's not a chakra monster that's the source of my powers?

Let's see, there was that Meteor thingy that Hoshigakure used, and it strengthened chakra at the risk of the user's body becoming damaged. The meteor would make sense, but it doesn't cover the healing factor, the pain-based chakra recharge, _or_ the similarity to the Kyuubi's chakra.

There was that Box of Ultimate Bliss in Kusa, right? The one that turned you into the host for the giant bird-monkey demon thing, Satori? That strengthened your chakra, yeah? But still, it didn't cover the stuff that I apparently had.

"Hey! Are you listening to me? This is very important: you need to- "

"Yeah, yeah, doc, just do your thing." I carelessly waved off the doctor. I have more important things to think about.

So we're back to magic chakra animals. Did the Jiongu count as a chakra animal? I've always wondered whether it was like, a parasite or whatever, or a legit jutsu, that you could learn. 'Cause if you can _learn_ the Jiongu…

Hoho, Kakuzu, you ain't got nothing on me.

Back on topic, chakra animals.

Wasn't there that weird-ass jutsu, the chimera technique? That one could fuse together animals. Was I the fusion of several animals? That could be it, maybe one of them could regenerate from pain?

Then there was that giant leech thing that those flying dudes used to power their big ass flying fortress, the Reibi. The one that could… regenerate when stuff was cut off… and generated chakra… from… negative emotions. Huh.

I think we have a winner.

Am I a chimera with the Reibi and myself acting as the ingredients? Maybe I'm just the top layer, and underneath the skin as a giant chakra… leech… thing. That's a slightly disturbing though, but whatever! Anything for power!

Pain isn't an emotion though? Whatever. It's a negative _sensation_ , good enough to power my chakra, I guess.

Should I be freaking out?

Nah.

But I gotta figure out a way to better control how my body responds to lower amounts of chakra. I need to know exactly when I can expect the pain. If I go through so much pain that I pass out, then the increased chakra regeneration is useless.

"Hey!" The doctor slaps me this time, "Listen to me!"

There's no way that whatever he's about to say is more important than my thoughts, "The hell do you want?"

The doctor sighed in resignation, "You know what? Whatever. Just get out of here. Take it easy for the rest of the week. Not like you can move very well anyways."

"Sure, whatever." With that I hopped out of the hospital bed, opened the window, and dived right out of it, leaving behind a flabbergasted doctor.

Quick recovery for the win! That foolish mortal dared to doubt my regeneration!? Nevermind the fact that it probably came from a leech that may or may not be living inside of me. I can see why Jinchuurikis are so highly favoured in the Hidden Villages. If my recovery was any _close_ to what Bijuus could gift to their containers, those guys were nigh _unstoppable_ in combat.

I should treat Naruto to ramen more often, if only to have his help in combat when I indefinitely find myself fucked over in a fight.

* * *

"Alright, here's to confirming the Reibi actually is hanging around somewhere!" I said out loud to no one in particular. I was currently at Training Ground Seven, bouncing around in excitement. Hey, it isn't every day that you may or may not get a potential power up.

"Oh great Reibi!" I mockingly called out, "Hear my call, and get me that rock!"

…

Alright, enough screwing around. Time to actually get down to business-

 _Thunk!_

Ow! The hell!

The rock bonked me in the head, in a way similar to Tora and the key from Orochimaru's lab. Wiping a bit of blood from my head, flowing from a wound that was already healing thanks to my healing factor, I decided to try again.

"Alright _smartass_ ," I snarled, presumably to the Reibi, " _Hold_ the rock, and don't, _don't_ throw it at me."

This time I actually saw it. It was still too fast for me to actually see the movement out of my body, but I saw it once it stopped and grabbed the rock.

It was a long, rubbery white arm extending out from my. I followed the arm up to see where it… _holy crap!_

No wonder it was hitting me in the face when I was grabbing things. The extra arm came from my freaking mouth! _It was an extension of my Kami damn tongue!_

This is concerning. And freaky as hell. Also cool. But mostly freaky as hell. And concerning.

I wonder if I can make more of-

"Will you cut that out!" I shouted suddenly. My voice was slightly muffled by the arm extending out my _freaking mouth,_ but somehow I was still able to speak. I'll chalk it up to chakra shenanigans. At my sudden declaration, the stinging feeling that was slowly building in my chest as the arm stayed extended vanished.

Convenient. It seems to want to obey me. Presumably because my death would be a rather unpleasant experience for it. Wait, that implies sentience if it's obeying my orders. Can it talk to me? Maybe it'd be a good friend?

Admittedly, making my first friend in Naruto a few days ago has made me kind of hyped for my friends. Was the friendship going to my head? Oh Kami, I hope not. Most shinobi developed quirks as they grew stronger, for whatever reason. Would my quirk be becoming everyone's friend? Would I become like _freaking Gai? Except instead of shouting about youth, I would shout about the magic of friendship. No. No, no,_ _ **NO! This can't happen to me! Friendship is**_ **not** _ **magic! NO! NO-**_

 _Slap!_

Aw, thanks creepy, rubbery, tongue-hand thing! Slapping me out of my tangents and stuff! Not only did it shut off the automatic pain-inducing thing that was going on, but it was turning out to be one of my best friends!

I will conveniently ignore the fact that, if the Reibi is, in fact, a friend, it will be one of my _only_ two friends. Alongside Naruto.

This is slightly saddening.

Whatever! Back to training.

"Yo. Reibi. I'm gonna make the Chidori again. Do me a solid and _don't_ cause me pain? I know you want to keep me topped off on chakra, but going to the hospital isn't exactly conducive to training."

I paused for a moment, trying to decide whether or not the Reibi heard me. Whatever. Not like a little bit of pain will keep me from training.

I will forget the fact that the amount of chakra-induced self-inflicted damage associated with the Chidori was enough to knock me to the ground, knock me unconscious, and send me to the hospital.

I formed the Chidori again, this time with no pain.

Oh, there are so many ideas I have for the Chidori! For one, the whole shape change Chidori thing needs to happen sometime. Sasuke could essentially throw _Sith Lightning_ with a shape changed Chidori.

I also have to change the makeup of the Chidori itself somewhere down the line. A lot of lightning's more dangerous properties were sealed away in the making of the Chidori. The heat of the lightning was scaled down, and the speed at which the lightning could be wielded had to be slowed down, all for something as stupid as the user's safety.

But I didn't need any of that!

Who cares if the Chidori gave me burns on my hand? The pain would just give me more chakra.

Who cares if the the lightning literally tore me apart from the sheer speed at which it was going at? Even if I arrived at my target half dead, I'd have enough chakra to make another Chidori in no time!

That being said though, I need to learn medical jutsu as soon as possible. I can't have my body entirely mutilated during a fight, yeah? The cycle would essentially be this: mutilate yourself for chakra, heal yourself with the chakra you generated with the pain, rinse and repeat.

I grinned at the sparkling mass of chakra in my hands. Chidori, you and I have _work_ to do.

* * *

 _A/N: A few of you said that you actually liked the name of the Fic, so maybe I'll keep it after all._

 _In other news, I was originally going to have the origin of Seidome's power be the meteor from Hoshigakure. The way that story was going to go down would be that Seidome would have a piece of the meteor stuck in his heart, and that the corrosive chakra of the meteor would eat away at his body whenever he used a jutsu, effectively turning him into a Rock Lee with no gates. He wouldn't have been able to use chakra at all. Then I realised that a character like that wouldn't be able to stand up to the endgame, so yeah…_

 _I actually thought about pretty much all of the options that Seidome comes up with at the hospital. I kept on thinking about different mashups between the meteor, the Jiongu, and whatever else I could think of, but I eventually decided that the Reibi would keep the continuity of the story so far relatively well (there's a bit more explanation coming up in the later chapters), and that it would be viable for endgame. The other options were just really convoluted when I really thought about it._

 _It was the whole thingy with the meteor that was the nerf that I planned on doing. Originally, some bullcrap with Orochimaru gets involved and he gained immunity to the corrosive meteor chakra._

 _It's a shame that I felt the need to scrap those ideas. Pika5490, in particular, seemed rather excited for the 'shazzy gold.' So, I'm considering doing a spin-off of this later on using one of the other possibilities that I've cooked up._

 _As always, review, and give me some feedback!_


	11. Chapter 11

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

Two weeks until the Chunin exams.

I was right. Kakashi _did_ was sending us off to die in Kumo. Well, not _technically,_ Kakashi. He was under orders from the village, after all. He wasn't all too happy shipping us off to the Chunin exams, seeming rather unhappy when giving us the forms.

I guess he believed that we'd die off in Kumo. Daisuke and Ayano might, but I think I have a decent fighting chance. I've been getting good with the Reibi's shadow hands, and my pain tolerance has been going up considerably ever since I started training taking injuries.

I shivered. That training was _horrifying,_ especially after… nevermind.

Anyways, we got handed the forms. Kakashi being reluctant to give us the forms made me question why he gave Team Seven the forms back in canon. Did he just not want to train them that much? I was under the impression that he would have been ecstatic to receive his sensei's son for a student. Maybe he just wanted to speed Naruto's promotion, and thought everything would be chill because the exams were in Konoha?

In any case, he handed us the forms. And you bet your ass that, death trap or not, I was going to the… wait a minute…

I wonder what would happen if I didn't sign my form? It would get me out of fighting, and perhaps extend my lifespan, but did any actually do that? That would certainly throw a wrench in Konoha's plans. Although, if I kept on refusing to sign the forms, then by the time Naruto and Sasuke graduated, Kakashi would be forcefully reassigned to their team.

Not that I wasn't going to sign the form, of course. This is a chance for Chunin rank. I get to escape the awkwardness of being teammates with Daisuke and Ayano! If they also ranked up to Chunin, great! More skilled shinobi is always a good thing. If they died, also great! I don't have to be teammates with these squeamish, inept excuses for shinobi anymore!

"This'll be a tough exam.I won't hold it against you if you don't want to go. There's a chance of death, especially high for you since you guys don't have much experience with being a ninja yet." Ah, Kakashi was trying to get us to back off. Nice guy, trying to prolong our survival.

"No worries, we'll breeze through this!" I said, with a grin containing slightly elongated and sharpened canines l. Don't ask. It was part of my pain tolerance training.

 _Shiver._

Daisuke and Ayano say nothing. The former being both uncomfortable, and slightly terrified of me, and the latter just being naturally that quiet.

"Is this a team evaluation, or is it an individual one?" Ayano asks Kakashi.

Kakashi frowns at her question, no doubt thinking that the lectures he gave us on the importance of teamwork had fallen on deaf ears. "Kumo doesn't care about teamwork as much as we do. But _I_ expect you all to cooperate and support one another." He's trying to drill the Will of Fire crap into our heads, "You are a _team_. As such, if one of you isn't comfortable with going, I'll prevent you _all_ from going."

I start at that. He's going to _prevent_ us from going? Not on my watch. Screw the fact that he's just trying to keep us safe, _I don't need safety._ In fact, it'd be _just fine_ if I were injured during the exams, considering the fact that injuries give me power ups. I want my promotion, and I'm going to get it.

"That's just fine, after all, _as a team_ , we're going to do just fine. _Right guys?"_ I exert just the right amount of killing intent so that it puts Daisuke and Ayano on edge, but isn't noticed by Kakashi.

Daisuke and Ayano freeze in terror and break out into a cold sweat. They seem a lot more terrified than I thought they'd be with the tiny amount of killing intent I'm putting out.

Kakashi tenses and makes a grab for his kunai pouch. His fingers only make it halfway before he stops and relaxes.

Oops. Might've made the killing intent a bit too strong. A slight prickling in my chest confirms that fact.

See, the Reibi has a special form of chakra called dark chakra. When dark chakra is wielded purely, it comes out black, like you'd expect, unlike the boring regular stuff, which comes out blue. Dark chakra is composed entirely out of negative emotions, hence why I can generate it off of pain.

This composition of negative emotions make for some pretty nasty killing intent. The pain in my chest generated dark chakra and I sent it out in the form of killing intent. Which is kind of weird when you think about it, because killing intent doesn't use chakra at all, just pure murderous desires. But hey, chakra shenanigans.

So, depending on how much dark chakra I put into my killing intent, I can make people piss their pants in terror.

Oh yeah, and while we're on the topic of the Reibi, let's stop for a minute and examine the pains I've been feeling. It's my body- or, perhaps the leech inside of me? Something like that? Maybe?- subconsciously trying to produce enough chakra to power my techniques. Ever wonder how it creates the pain?

It fucking makes a Kami damned tiny shadow hand _inside of me to_ _ **poke**_ _at my internal organs!_

Not okay, Reibi!

 _Thump!_

No, seriously! That's freaky as hell! I mean, if it keeps me alive during a fight, I'll take it, but… ew.

Not as freaky as my week training my pain tolerance, mind you, but still freaky. Just remembering the last week gave me shivers. _It was awful. I was just trying-_

A high pitched wail cut through my thoughts. Ayano and Daisuke were on the ground, and Kakashi was desperately trying to keep from killing me on instinct. His hands kept twitching around the place, and his feet shuffled around into various battle stances.

Another scream cut the air.

Why are people screaming?

This time, Ayano opened her mouth, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper, only an echo of the scream earlier.

No really, why was this happening?

Oh yeah, dark chakra. I guess remembering the freakiness of the source of my chakra pains, and remembering the _absolutely horrific-_

A nonsensical babble flowed from Daisuke's mouth.

- _training_ only condensed more negative emotions into dark chakra, forcing it out to create even stronger killing intent. Whoops. Didn't mean to do that. I guess I kind of forgot that normal negative emotions would function to power up the dark chakra, considering that I normally just use pain to power myself up. It's just a way easier way to produce dark chakra, as the other method would be constantly thinking back to events which produce negative emotions. That's a lame and probably not very effective way of generating dark chakra, but I digress.

"Sorry guys, didn't mean to do that." I said sheepishly rubbing the back of my head. I only received blank looks in return.

They were even more terrified of me than before.

Good for them.

Sign the damn forms.

I hope you two die in Kumo.

* * *

"And then she punched me really hard!" Naruto pouted, "And then she walked over to Sasuke-teme and started talking to him instead!"

We sat at Ichiraku Ramen, the normal meeting place for us. Ayame and Teuchi were busying themselves behind the counter of the ramen stand.

"Of course Naruto." I absently said. Sasuke. That was someone I haven't thought too much about. Wait… damn it! I missed the Uchiha Massacre! That would've been the perfect time to grab myself some Sharingan.

Now that I think about it though, it was probably for the best that I missed it. The clan compound was probably swarming with ANBU, making it impossible for me to get in there.

"Sasuke-teme doesn't deserve her! He always just ignores her! I hope that I won't get put on a team with him! There's no way that would happen though. There's no way that an amazing ninja like me would get put with an idiot like him!"

"Naturally."

"Hey, speaking of teams, what's your team like, Seidome?"

"Hmm? My team? It's… uh… interesting." That's one way to put it, certainly. Between my bursts of psychopathy, Ayano's aloof nature, Daisuke's formerly cheerful, now dampened attitude, and just the awkwardness that permeated all of our meetings, it was certainly… interesting.

"It must be awesome going on missions! Did you save any princesses? Did you save any countries? C'mon!"

My lips twitched in amusement. Just wait 'til you start taking on D-Ranks Naruto. The only princess you'll be saving is fucking Tora.

"I escorted a bunch of merchants to Grass Country once."

"Lame!"

"It's also the mission where I learned the lightning hounds _and_ the lightning disc thing I can do."

Naruto's eyes widen comically.

He's in for a shock when he starts doing the _real_ low ranked missions.

I grinned.

It felt so good know that you're about to pass on the suffering to future shinobi.

"Oh yeah, I'm leaving at the end of this week."

"Really? Where!?"

"Kumo."

"Why!?"

I grinned at this, "I'm taking the Chunin exams."

"What! You've been a ninja for like, four months! How the hell are you taking the Chunin exams already?!"

"Trade secret." I smirked.

Naruto just pouted.

* * *

I threw my lightning discs at Kakashi's clone. I really wish I could control more than three of them at a time. The clone expertly weaved through all of them and ran towards me, kunai in hand.

There were only a few days until left until we leave for Kumo. Kakashi was trying to squeeze in as much training as possible. Right now, I was sparring with one of his clones.

The clone threw a kunai at me. No doubt, this was nowhere near the maximum speed he could throw the kunai. This is _training,_ after all. Not repeated ass beating. Although sometimes I think the two terms could be used interchangeably.

I Kawarimi'd with the kunai, putting me significantly closer to the clone. I charged up a Chidori in my right hand and dashed at him. The Chidori burned my hand. I had removed some of the safety features that the Chidori had built in, so that I could get a more powerful jutsu, and more chakra for my money.

Then, I dashed at the Kakashi clone. The next upgrade I planned to do for the Chidori was to get rid of the built in speed limiter. The Chidori was essentially a mass of lightning chakra that pulled its user forwards. If it went as fast as it could, it could easily pull the user's arm off, which is why it had built in limiters. I'm not exactly planning on releasing all of the limiters. Just enough to have speed capable of dislocating my shoulder. I couldn't regenerate an arm, after all,

Yet. I couldn't regenerate an arm yet.

When I do obtain the ability to regenerate my limbs, you better bet your ass that I'm gonna release all of the Chidori's limiters. Just think about it! I'd wind up a Chidori, then it'd rip off my arm and turn into an arm-sized lightning missile!

It would be beautiful.

The clone's skillful counter of my Chidori interrupted my dreams of grandeur. He pulled an Itachi and caught my wrist, avoiding the Chidori. He hefted my body overhead, and slammed me to the ground.

Ha! Joke's on you! Pain makes jutsu easier for me. With enough dark chakra accumulated, I can start doing jutsu sealless. Only the weak ones for now, but I'll get there someday. The only offensive jutsu I have that I can use sealless are my lightning hounds.

With the Kakashi clone literally right next to me, there should've been no way that he could have dodged the hound. There were no hand signs to indicate for him that I was using a jutsu, but I forgot one crucial thing.

This is fucking _Kakashi_ I fighting against, clone or not.

Kami damn it.

So, because it's fucking _Kakashi_ , it's somehow able to react in time to Kawarimi with a log in the forest. My lightning hound angrily punches through the log. I maneuver the hound over to where Kakashi is jumping out from the forest.

The clone easily jumps over the hound and resumes its charges at me. It threw several shuriken in my direction which I ducked under. They impact against the trees behind me.

My lightning hound dissipates to free up my hands for another jutsu. Going through some hand signs, three Rat Tremor discs fly through the air, homing in on the clone's location.

The clone puts on a burst of speed. The discs collide into the ground, exploding harmlessly behind it. More shuriken are sent behind me, ending up as the other ones did, embedded into the trees behind me.

The clone charges at me once again. I smirk. It's finally close enough.

I wind up another Chidori. The clone looks mildly impressed. I had only learned the Chidori recently, after all. Going for hours using a third-rate, crappily formed Chidori while training for it is one thing, but using a proper Chidori twice in quick succession is an entirely different thing altogether.

I charge at the Kakashi clone with speed enhanced by the Chidori. The clone once again catches my wrist. The kunai in its other hand is thrust towards my stomach. I didn't bother to dodge the kunai. It pierced my stomach with little resistance.

The clone widens its eyes. Obviously, it expected me to dodge the kunai. Perfect. Everything is going as planned. With my left hand, the one not wielding the Chidori, I reach out behind me. My left hand spears itself on one of the shuriken embedded in the tree behind me. Those were the same shuriken that Kakashi himself threw while charging at me.

It's beautiful. The clone itself gave me all of the tools I needed to win. The kunai it shoved into my gut and the shuriken impaling my hand give me all of the pain that I need to get the dark chakra flowing. If I had done this a week prior, I would have been screaming my head off. Now, I just grit my teeth and winced. Pain tolerance training was no joke.

'Not that I ever want to go through that hell again,' I shivered.

I push the chakra I just generated into the Chidori in my hand. The Chidori crackles into a whole new level. The Chidori turned an unhealthy shade of grey, the dark chakra tainting the lightning. The Chidori's characteristic chirping birds noise becomes warbled. It less like cheerful chirping, and more like crows in a cemetery.

The empowered Chidori was enough to launch my hand through the clone's grip, rocketing forwards towards the clone's abdomen.

And yet, the clone was _still_ able to react. Clearly, Kakashi isn't one of the village's elite shinobi for nothing. The clone Kawarimis with a log in the forest. The empowered Chidori plows through the log. It isn't slowed down at all by the log. It then rockets me across the clearing that we were fighting in. The grey Chidori pierces through a tree. Then through the tree behind that one. Then through the one behind that tree. In punctures through two more trees until finally colliding against a boulder. The powered up Chidori makes a huge crater on the side of the boulder. At least half of the boulder is blown up by the Chidori.

With that, he grey Chidori finally dissipates, the warbled, crow's cries fading away. I shakily stood up. The Chidori didn't just take the dark chakra I produced. It sucked up _my entire reserves._ Not just my reserves, I corrected in my head, also the potent extra dark chakra that I produced when I let the clone stab me and when I impaled myself.

My reserves were too low to even use my hounds. I grit my teeth. I had to activate my pain reflex again.

I had shut off my body's automatic response to chakra demand, for the most part at least. Sometimes I'd accidentally release my hold over the reaction. It's no use training to bring up my chakra reserves if I can never empty them, after all. This time, I reactivated the pain on purpose.

I tried to forget the fact that the pain stemmed from tiny little rubbery white hands inside of my body.

Satisfied that my chakra was regenerating, I shakily took a step forwards. My legs were still weak, but proved relatively steady. With dark chakra pumping throughout my system, I'd be able to move just fine in a minute.

Just then, the Kakashi clone stepped into my field of vision.

Aw, crap.

I didn't have enough chakra for another Chidori, and the Chidori is the only jutsu I have that's fast enough to maybe have some hope of catching him off guard. My chakra regenerated too slowly, even with the pain boost, to form another Chidori in time.

Well, let's go for the next best thing. Let's go Rat Tremor! I put my hands up for a hand sign, preparing to launch the Rat Tremor discs.

Well, I _tried_ to put my hands into a hand sign. Turns out that my right hand is too badly burned from the grey Chidori and the Chidoris I used before it to really make a hand sign.

Even if I could use my right hand for a hand sign, I freaking _impaled_ my left hand on a shuriken to generate dark chakra earlier. My left hand was useless too.

With both of my hands out of commission, things were looking rather grim. Thankfully, I had one more trick up my sleeve. The Reibi's shadow hands. I didn't want to use them. I still couldn't really control them that well. I wasn't proficient enough with them to be comfortable with using them in true combat. But since this was just a spar, I could at least give it a shot.

A Shadow Arm slowly slithered its way out of mouth, becoming an extension of my tongue. The hand shot towards the clone. It widened its eyes at the hand shooting towards it, but once it recognised the threat, it easily caught the arm's thrust.

See, here's the problem with my usage of the Shadow Arms. The arms were fast, faster than my Rat Tremors, but not quite as fast as the Chidori. The Chidori's a rather high standard though, so I'm not too concerned about that. The point is, the Shadow Arms a fast. The problem is, I'm bad at controlling the arms. I can make them shoot in a straight line, and that's about it.

My crappy control doesn't matter in this scenario, though. Not when everything is going exactly as I planned. I planned most of my moves to an extent. I couldn't predict the grey Chidori, but I did have contingencies to various circumstances.

I knew I would be fighting a clone, so I devised a backup plan based around that.\

My Shadow Arms could absorb chakra.

Well, sort of.

Through a manipulation of negative emotions, I'm totally calling chakra shenanigans on this one, they can absorb chakra from anyone they touch. They could then channel the chakra, now turned dark chakra, through themselves and power up their user.

I planned with all of this in mind. I was banking on the Kakashi clone being cocky. Instead of just dodging the arm like a normal person, the clone caught the arm.

Checkmate.

Clones can think for themselves, and as such, generate negative emotions. Through the manipulation of the negative emotions, the arm could suck up the clone's chakra.

The chakra forming the clone was sucked up into my Shadow Arm, dispelling the clone.

Take that Kakashi-sensei! I freaking won!

Against a clone of you that probably wasn't even going at a tenth of its maximum capacity. It was pretty visibly pulling its punches and slowing itself down to better match my level.

Still, I won.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to collapse on the ground and fall unconscious.

Chakra exhaustion is no joke.

* * *

 _A/N: Shadow arms are the rubbery white hands that the Reibi generates, in case you didn't read the wiki or just know that off the top of your head. I don't think I described them very well in the chapter._

 _I guess I'll start to respond to reviews down here._

 _MrTicklesMMM: Yeah, I kind of forgot about the fact that there's no way that an experiment of Orochimaru's wouldn't get a medical exam. Looking back on it though, I'm not sure how else to introduce the Reibi. If anyone's got a good idea for it, let me know in the reviews, and I'll rewrite it. Otherwise, stretch your suspension of disbelief a bit more to make some leeway for that mistake. Also, you mentioned the Genjutsu Seidome's eye is under. It's just a Henge variant. I was going to mention that in an earlier chapter, but I guess I just forgot to. I added it in though, so it's cool now. Thanks for reviewing and pointing out my mistakes!_

 _Nandeenah: Yeah, I didn't know about the Reibi either until a week or two ago there was a note in an earlier chapter where I told you guys that I had to scour the wiki for a bit to find a suitable explanation for Seidome's stuff. I'm trying to use as much material as possible from the series, and maybe use some obscure stuff that you may have not heard of. The Reibi doesn't have a name that I know of, the wiki doesn't list one, but I might make one up later on. I'm not sure if I actually will though, considering I'm not planning for too much interaction between the Reibi and Seidome. That may change later on though, depending on how the story goes. Thanks for reviewing!_

 _Alrighty, thanks for reading! Feedback is much appreciated, as always._


	12. Chapter 12

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

Damn. Kumo is a hell of a lot more impressive than Konoha is.

No really, Konoha is your run-of-the-mill village. Kumo frickin' has stuff like, built into the side of cliffs and crap. Super cool stuff.

We made it to Kumo a day or two ago. Right now, we were in the building where the first stage of the exams were being held. I felt kind of cheated that the stuff they were testing us on was probably going to the same as the one seen in canon. First stage is information gathering, it's not the same exact thing that was shown in canon, but still.

Currently, I was sitting in a chair.

Well, I was tied to the chair. Some team of background character Kusa nin are trying to torture a message out of me.

It's not working.

I'm giggling.

"Just shut the hell up!" One of the Kusa nin shouted. He scratched me up the arm with the kunai. The rule for the information gathering session is that you can only make superficial wounds when interrogating someone. In order to pass the first stage, you have to keep the message the proctor gave you out of the other team's hand. Alternatively, the other members of your team can get the message out of another team. Either one will get you to the next round, but getting both will most definitely score bonus points.

"You, know, you guys kind of suck at interrogation." I mirthfully tell them.

The Kusa nin is quick to respond, "Shut up! You're just fucking weird as hell! Are you a fucking masochist or something!?" He makes an x-shaped scratch on the back of my right hand.

"Me? A masochist?" I feign offense, "Why, I would have never imagined that anyone would have the utter _nerve_ to even _suggest_ such a thing!"

" _Then what the hell do you call this!_ "

Well… he's not wrong. My arms are covered in scratches. Several bruises mar my pale skin. The rope that binds me to the chair is digging into my flesh.

And here I am, a dissolving mess of a giggling shinobi.

"I call this my normal Friday night!" I cheerfully reply to the Kusa nin. I'm not even lying. Actually I do this shit to myself every day. I need to build up a pain tolerance to fuel the leech living in my gut. Dark chakra doesn't just grow on trees!

"..." The Kusa nin are silent.

 _Ah_ , there's just something magical about fucking with people.

The Kusa nin that had been interrogating me before dropped his kunai. His hands covered his face in shame. His teammate, a Kusa kunoichi who wore some weird-ass combination of a dress and a flak jacket, bent down to the ground and grabbed it.

Heh. She grabbed his kunai.

There's a joke in there somewhere.

She bent down. She slowly moved the kunai downwards. The kunai was- _Oh HELL no!_

She's gonna fucking pry my fingernails off!

No way in hell! I know I went through pain tolerance training and all, but that something that I'm still uncomfortable with! Back away lady!

Let's see, how to get out of this situation, but also fuck with them a bit? I think I've got something.

"Well, uh… hate to break it to you but… " I start, "Actually, you may want to sit down for this one."

In an instant, the ropes binding me drop to the floor. I had been slowly working a Shadow Arm with a kunai into the ropes. Since my control with the Arms was so shitty, it took frickin' forever to get it in the right spot. I stand up and look right into the Kusa nins' eyes. Confusion. Denial. Fear.

Beautiful.

I pick up the chair. Before the Kusa nin can take even a single step, I slam the chair into their heads. The flimsy chair breaks to pieces upon its collision with their heads and they drop to the floor, unconscious. Hah! Get it! I said, 'You might want to sit down for this,' then I took the chair! The chair! You know, the thing you normally sit on? Then I… uh… then they got… er… knocked unconscious?

It sounded a lot funnier in my head.

I crouched down to the ground. I checked their pulses. They're still alive, _phew._ Okay, cool! Yujin would be pretty pissed off if he found out that I actually killed some Kusa nin. Wouldn't want to make him do that disappointed Yujin pouty face, now, would we!

The interrogations were being held in small, private rooms. I opened the door to my room to find my teammates.

The was leaving bloody footprints wherever I walked. Huh. I guess the Kusa nin cut me up more badly than I thought they did. I'm not certain whether to be happy that my pain tolerance is pretty high now, or slightly concerned that I didn't even notice that I was dripping blood.

I'll settle for happy.

Besides, they were only superficial wounds. It's not like I could just shrug off a fatal wound, or anything.

Not right now, at least. One day.

I opened the door to one of the interrogation rooms. The one tied to the chair was the only one that noticed me, as he was facing the door. Damn these doors are well maintained. They didn't make _any_ noise when they opened. The one who was facing the door's eyes widened slightly, he opened his mouth-

-Only to scream when a kunai was dragged up his calf. Poor guy.

I shut the door to the room a tried the next one. Nope, this isn't the one either.

Nope.

Nope- Oh _damn,_ that's _nasty._ What are they even doing that poor… _ew…_

Nope.

Nope.

Found 'em!

Daisuke and Ayano had a different approach to doing things. Ayano had put our hostage under a Genjutsu. It must be a pretty gruesome one. The guy in the chair is whimpering and struggling.

Aw, I'm so proud of them! Over the course of the trip to Kumo, they've gradually grown better at… well… being competent shinobi, I guess.

Daisuke and Ayano even killed a few bandits!

I know, right?

I'm so proud of my teammates!

Now that I think about it, it's kind of weird how there's so many bandits around. With a world full of shinobi, you'd _think_ that there'd be less bandits. Or at least that they'd learn to run away the minute they saw a headband. But _nope!_ My teammates just shoved cold steel up their spines! Nice going guys!

Of course, they didn't exactly cope too well with their first kills, with Daisuke vomiting on the spot, and Ayano going into the forest, presumably to come to grips with the fact that she's now officially a shinobi. But hey! Everyone starts somewhere! Even I vomited on my first murder! Yeah! Go team!

Although, now they're starting to give me pitying looks. Do they think my personality is a result of my murdering of the bandits? Silly teammates! I'm always like this!

"Hey guys!" I called out to my teammates.

Daisuke gives me a confused look, "I thought you were supposed to beeeeee… _holy fuck, what the hell happened to you?"_

I looked down. Huh. I was still dripping blood onto the floor. Interesting.

"I got interrogated!" I cheerfully replied, "Then I beat my interrogators unconscious with a chair!"

Daisuke took one long look at me.

He blinks.

Then sighs in resignation.

"Of _course_ you did."

While Daisuke took in my awesomeness, Ayano broke the shinobi that she was interrogating out of the Genjutsu and questioned him again.

The shinobi refused to answer. Ayano seemed frustrated. I slid to her side.

"Need some help? I bet I could get him to crack in just a few seconds."

She scowled, "I've been at this for twenty minutes now. There's no way you'd be able to get the message out of him that fast."

I smirked at her, "Watch me."

I took a kunai out of my pouch and walked over to the guy tied to the chair. He's a dark skinned, fair-haired Kumo nin. He watched me warily.

My kunai drifted in a distinctly… _downwards_ direction.

The kunai ghosts over his crotch region. The Kumo nin pales rapidly.

"I wonder if this will count as a superficial wound?" I muse out loud.

"Okay! Okay! I give! I'll tell you everything! The message is…" The Kumo nin rattles out the message that the proctors gave him.

I turn around, smirking at my teammates. Ayano seems mildly impressed.

Daisuke is on the ground, dry heaving.

Beautiful.

* * *

 _Interlude: Proctors_

ANBU were stationed in every room, hidden under a rudimentary invisibility Genjutsu, to ensure that no rules were broken during the exams. They had just reported the events of Testing Room 107 to the proctors.

"Uh, is he allowed to do that?" Two proctors are sitting in the room that the Genin first arrived in for the exams.

"Maybe?" The other proctor flicks through a rather thin booklet of regulations for the exams, "It doesn't say that he can't. So… props to him for being creative?"

"Yeah! But, that chair thing was totally more than a superficial wound," The first proctor points out to the other.

The other proctor awkwardly responds, "Technically, that rule only applies to the one being interrogated. Since the two Kusa shinobi weren't the guys being interrogated… "

"Is he allowed to interrogate other people?"

"... The regulations don't forbid that either."

"But what he was planning on doing... "

"Can we not, right now?"

The two proctors sat in an awkward silence.

"So… we let this one slide, then revise the regulations later?"

"Mhmm." The other proctor agreed.

* * *

"All of you in this room have shown remarkable… " The proctor started delivering a speech about something or other. I, being the classy Fanfiction protagonist that I was, immediately tuned him out. I didn't need to hear any of his bullshit.

There were other users of dark chakra before me, yeah? Yeah! There was that one dude, Shinno or something? He harvested negative emotions from that girl… uh… what was her name? Not important. Since I'm also a host for the Reibi, I don't need her.

Actually, it might be nice to have a secondary power source.

Eh, but I don't really want to rely on a secondary power source. Naruto beat Shinno by making that girl- I'm _still_ blanking on her name- happy or whatever, thus stopping the flow of dark chakra. Shinno was pretty badass otherwise. He could make a dark chakra _Rasengan_. Not quite the Rasengan, but more or less the same thing.

"The trials that await you further down the road will… " Damn, this proctor's speech was _hella_ long.

Alright let's think about the next stage of the Chunin exams. Presumably it's going to be some sort of survival test. Can we stand a chance?

It can't be that hard. We'll probably be fine.

"... You have all shown that you have the resolve to become…"

I should start thinking about how to improve my jutsu. Assuming the exam, in essence, the same as the one shown in the series, I should start grinding my jutsu. I need to impress the judges in the tournament.

For my lightning hounds, who says I'm limited to just _one_ hound? What if I could create multiple, and control several hounds at once? What'd be pretty awesome. It'd take some impressive multitasking skills, but it's probably doable.

For my Rat Tremor, the only thing I really have to improve is the quantity. I can only make three discs at a time, which really cuts down on the destructiveness of the jutsu. The jutsu is meant to conjure up like, a dozen discs. I could also improve the speed of them.

"... but still, the question remains. Do you have the strength…"

For the Chidori, I need to just get better at using it. I'm inexperienced with the Chidori, and I'm sure that, with some more practice, I'll get to the point where I can weave through attacks, even with the high speed of the Chidori. Supposedly you could only Chidori in a straight line, but I wonder if I can change that. Do a curvy Chidori and stuff.

I also need to strip off more of the safety features that the Chidori has. I currently have a bit of the heat limits of the Chidori taken off. The one that I'm most excited for is the speed limit. I could go _way_ past the speed of a normal Chidori. Normally that kind of speed would probably dislocate an arm, or something, but in my case, the pain and injury is a bonus.

The Grey Chidori… I'm not quite certain what to do with it. If I try to train with it, it'll drain me of all of my chakra and leave me unconscious in moments. That makes it so that I can't train with anything else. I guess I'll play with it after the exams.

"... And should you demonstrate the skills, strength, and resolve necessary to become a Chunin, know that the burden you bear will be to the benefit of your village. That is all."

Finally! I had no idea that it would take so freaking long to read through such a boring ass speech! I just want to blow shit up!

Everyone in the room suddenly turns towards me. Their emotions ranged from amused to scandalised. Ayano was trying her hardest to keep it cool, and Daisuke held his head in his hands.

Oh damn, did I say that out loud?

* * *

We headed back to the hotel that we had been staying at for the past few days. We were all crammed into one room, so we had to devise a sleeping arrangement that worked for everyone.

There were two beds in the room, so you'd think that we'd sleep with two people to a bed, but _nope!_

Neither I nor Daisuke had the balls to sleep with either Ayano or Kakashi.

So Ayano and Kakashi got the beds, while Daisuke and I made do with the floor.

Opening the door to our hotel room, we found it dark and empty. We immediately assumed a triangular formation, with me taking point, Daisuke behind me on the left, and Ayano on the right.

I flew through the hand signs of the lightning hounds, holding the last one. We were in too close quarters for me to cut loose with the Rat Tremor, and since we didn't know what we were up against, it was best not to use the Chidori and reveal a trump card.

Staying in formation, we slowly tiptoed into the seemingly deserted hotel room.

"Yo."

 _Holy shit!_

Startled, I released the lightning hound. The hound lit the room with a harsh, flickering light, and bounded across the room towards Kakashi, who was leaning against the doorway.

Clearly, I wasn't alone in my thinking, as Ayano let loose a flurry of senbon, and Daisuke charged at Kakashi on reflex.

Kakashi being Kakashi, however, didn't even fucking give a shit. He coated a hand in chakra and carelessly batted away and dispelled my lightning hound. His hand came up and caught the senbon flying at him. He then caught Daisuke's wrist and swung him upwards, then flung him down to floor.

This… this… this man will be the death of me.

I just know it.

Kakashi put his hand up to his forehead. His legs swayed in a rather unstable fashion. "I can't believe it!" He cried, "My own Genin! Treating me with such hostility, after I worked so hard to train them! Have you no shame!? No remorse!? My poor heart is breaking!" Fat anime-style tears dripped from his lone eye.

We all held our heads in our hands. A feeling of shame permeated the room. Why the hell do we have to deal with this guy on a daily basis?

Fucking Kakashi.

* * *

 _A/N: Yay! Look! Team dynamic! With Daisuke and Ayano both taking their first kills, they've matured and have come to understand Seidome more. Sort of. In any case, there's actually a sort of team dynamic now._

 _I've been thinking about whether or not I should name my chapters. On one hand, it's more effort on my part. On the other, it'll look better. Choices, choices._

 _Yllems: The slightly edgy tone before is something I've been trying out. Is it too much? I've tried to back off this chapter. Seidome isn't quite mentally stable, and I want the story to reflect that. I've been trying to get the mood of the narrative to swing between light hearted and edgy to try to indicate Seidome's slightly screwed up mental state. I meant for the story to be slightly dark, but I got rather excited by the new powers I introduced, and started doing a bad writer's thing by writing it off as 'chakra shenanigans.' I think I got a bit carried away there. The Reibi is a legit thing in canon, so is dark chakra, but I think I might've handed Seidome too many buffs too quickly._

 _As always, feel free leave a review with constructive criticism. It would be much appreciated if you did!_


	13. Chapter 13

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

I feel cheated.

I know that I kind of expected this, but it still feels dumb.

The next stage of the Chunin exams was a survival test.

Now that I think about it, the entire freaking Chunin exam in general is a bad idea. Why the hell would you send your prospective ninja to a death trap like the Chunin exams? Wouldn't you want to keep your forces' abilities a secret? And keep them alive?

Unless the entire Chunin exams was more or less a giant attempt to catch the Daimyo's attention, throwing your best prospective Chunin out there to catch his eye.

It was probably also a big cash grab too. Lots of tourists came to watch the Chunin exams, specifically the third stage with the tournament, which encouraged economic growth and inflated the village's ego.

But other than those entirely sound reasons, there's no good reason to hold the Chunin exams!

Anyways, back to the Chunin exams. The area we were being tested in was called the, 'Mountain Range of Death.' What the fuck is up with that name? Or is it just the fact that Hidden Villages have absolutely zero creativity? Konoha had the 'Forest of Death,' and Kumo had the 'Mountain Range of Death.' I don't suppose that Suna's Chunin second stage Chunin exam area was called the 'Dunes of Death?'

Whatever.

"Alright, listen up maggots!" The proctor shouted, "This is the second stage of the Chunin exams! In a few minutes, you'll be… "

I fiddled with my hands. There was this stupid piece of dirt that was stuck underneath the nail of my middle finger, and it's pissing me off! I desperately tried to get it out from under, but alas, it was to no avail!

The proctor continued to shout, "Your objective will be to locate and… "

Stupid fucking piece of dirt! Just die! I swear to god, you stupid piece of dirt, I will get you out from under my nail, even if it kills you! Especially if it kills you! This Kami damn piece of dirt! Argh!

"... When you have acquired the sufficient amount of… "

Argh! I hate this! I hate this so much! How the hell did it get stuck so good in there! Wait… that could be taken out of context. I can't believe I'm cracking a sex joke, while the true enemy is right in front of me. This dumbass little… _uggh!_

Alright, _fine_. You want war, I'll get you war. I gathered lightning chakra in my hand. The sound of chirping birds filled the air. The Chidori sparkled into life.

I cackled maniacally, "Yes. _Yes_. _Yes, yes,_ _ **YES!**_ Die! Die you stupid little fucking piece of shit! I swear to Kami, when I'm fucking through with you, you'll look and feel like you've been through _hell! You hear me, you stupid ass piece of dirt!_ _ **You hear me!"**_

I rammed the Chidori into the wall creating a sizable gouge in the wall. I lifted my hand out of the crater I had made and inspected my hand. I brought my hand closer to my face.

"Yes! _Yes! Take that you filthy plebeian! You fucking-"_

The proctor cleared his throat. I turned to him, killing intent on full blast.

" _The fuck do you want!"_

The proctor sighed tiredly. "You know what? Nevermind. Just… go. The second stage starts now"

Not a single ninja moved from their spots. All of them were staring at the clearly insane ninja in front of them. Daisuke and Ayano looked at me in a combination of bewilderment and embarrassment.

"Alright guys," I cheerfully said to my teammates, "I wasn't really listening to anything that dumbass proctor was saying, so… uh… what the hell are we supposed to be doing?"

If my teammates could be more ashamed of me, they would literally die from the excess embarrassment hormones that their brains were pumping out. I'm not sure if that's a thing, but in this case, that sort of reaction would be more or less valid.

Daisuke, cheeks bright red, answered my question in an uncharacteristically small voice, "Each team has been given a badge. Our job is to make it to a tower somewhere in the Mountain Range of Death with at least two badges."

I nodded sagely, "Of course, Daisuke, I already knew that. I was simply testing the readiness of our team. Since we're about to go through a perilous situation together, I just wanted to make sure that we were all sufficiently informed."

Ayano looks at me, "Idiot."

I am offended.

I looked at one of the other teams. I just one of the Kumo kunoichi on the team tuck their badge into one of her pockets. I considered pickpocketing it. On one hand, we could head directly to the tower, bypassing the need to fight.

On the other, I can't be subtle worth shit.

I'm not really a shinobi. A shinobi is a guy who can kill an army without anyone finding out. Me… well, let's but it this way: If I took on an army, people would _really_ notice. I was less about _actually_ being a ninja, and more about the flashy jutsu.

But come on! Did you expect me _not_ to learn all the ninja magic that I could? That stuff was _awesome._

So, anyways, it's not worth the risk for trying to steal the badge, especially because, for me, the risk is particularly high.

With that internal issue out of the way, into the Mountain Range of Death we go!

I _still_ think it's a dumb name.

* * *

"Alright, so let's just head for the tower, then camp out there and ambush the first team that comes our way, yeah?" I propose a plan.

"Sure, the tower is a safe zone, so the minute we get another badge we're good." Daisuke agrees to my plan.

Ayano nods in agreement, then voices a suggestion, "If we walked up a mountain, perhaps we could spot the tower?"

"Good idea," I nod.

We walked up the nearest mountain in silence for an hour. Some parts of the mountain were so steep that we had to resort to tree-walking to scale the almost vertical surfaces.

We had just one blessed hour of peaceful silence. Just three friends-er… sort-of friends hiking up a mountain together.

Of _course_ something had to go wrong.

A fucking _laser beam_ of all things sliced through the air. It was only through months of Kakashi's _legit_ training that we managed to duck under the beam before it hit us.

The beam of swept over us, then faded away as the jutsu ended.

"My, my." A smirking, a dark skinned Kumo shinobi with fair hair stepped out from behind a rock. The rock had a glowing red line running horizontally across it. He had fired the laser from behind the rock. Cunt. "Not many people could have dodged my Storm Release. You three must be something special."

His teammates stepped out from behind different rocks. One of them, a kunoichi seemed to be a Ninjutsu specialist, her hands were crackling with lightning. The other, a lanky shinobi, fingered a shuriken. He was probably a kunai slinger.

I made some hands signs behind my back. Kakashi had drilled the standard communication hand seals through our heads. The message I sent was essentially that I would handle the Storm Release guy. Finish the other ones and come to back me up later, if I needed it. If I didn't, I'd come help them out after I took out the Storm Release guy.

We assumed a triangular formation and prepared to fight. The Kumo nin didn't bother making a formation. They were confident that they would win.

I went through hand signs behind my back, the last sign for the Rat Tremor held. I went made another non-verbal signal that we developed.

My right foot slid backwards.

The minute it did, all hell broke loose from us. I was up to four discs now. The discs all homed in on the Storm Release guy. He blasted them with a few well-aimed laser beams,

While everyone was distracted by the fancy light show, Ayano threw a shuriken at the kunai slinger Shinobi. He didn't notice it until it was hardly a quarter of a metre away. He dodged it, but the shuriken clipped his shoulder.

Angrily, he threw several senbon at Ayano. I looked away. I had my own battle to fight.

The Storm Release guy charged at me. I made a lightning hound, making it bound towards him. He dodged the hound and went through some hand seals, launching another laser beam towards me.

I cancelled my lightning hound in favour of throwing four more Rat Tremor discs. I dove out of the way of the laser.

I considered hiding behind a rock for cover, but then remembered, 'Oh wait! The lasers fucking cut through rocks! Fan-fucking-tastic!'

I make a Chidori in my right hand and charge at him. Or at least I would have, had he not blasted my with a laser. I run diagonally, barely avoiding the laser beam. I'm not skilled enough with the Chidori to run any direction other than straight ahead, so with Chidori-enhanced speed, I dash forwards at a slight angle to the laser beam and end up about two metres away from the Storm Release guy.

I prepare for a lightning hound. I can do the hound sealless, and the distance between us was small. There was no way that he could dodge.

Several senbon made their way into my right arm, moving my hand and interrupting my jutsu. I spare a look backwards. Somewhere in the middle of my struggle with the Storm Release guy, Daisuke had been knocked to the ground. It had probably been Ayano against both of the Storm Release guy's teammates for a minute or two.

Not finding the need to have both of them focus on her, the kunai slinger broke off from the fight and went to help against me.

I made four more Rat Tremor discs and threw two of them in both directions. Two of them were tossed to the kunai slinger, and the other two homed in on the Storm Release guy.

The Storm Release guy blasted my discs away with his laser beams, and the kunai slinger waited until the last second, then dove out of the way. All four of my discs exploded harmlessly.

The kunai slinger threw several shuriken at me, which I ducked under. They shuriken spun over me, towards the Storm Release guy.

I stood up straight again, my eyes fixed on the kunai slinger. My hands went through hand signs, preparing for another barrage of Rat Tremors.

 _Shink! Shink! Shink!_

Shuriken embedded into my back.

I turned around incredulously. The Storm Release guy had a smirk on his face, his hands pointing outwards as though he had just performed a jutsu.

Actually he _had_. The kunai slinger through his shuriken at me, knowing that if I blocked them, no harm done, but if they made it to the other side, they'd be sent back juiced up with Storm Release chakra, more deadly than before.

That's the difference between this team and mine. We were a team for barely more than four months, and we were all inexperienced in general. This team had probably been together for several more months than us, if not years. They knew and trusted each other and had combination attacks like that one.

The kunai slinger stayed at a distance, pelting me with all sort of projectiles. The Storm Release guy was benched for a bit, recovering from his chakra usage. Oh frickin' _no_ you don't.

A sudden bright light flashed from his hands. I was wrong. He didn't run away to recover, he ran away to prepare another technique.

This beam was different from the wildly charged, wide beams from before. This one was brighter, more focused, and more deadly.

The laser flew across to where I was. I prepared another Chidori to charge at him, but the beam was too fast for me to begin running.

The laser collided against the dense lightning chakra of the Chidori, the two jutsu competing for dominance.

Lightning chakra and Storm Release chakra exploded in an instant of glory, ending each other in a draw.

The difference between our techniques, however, was that the Storm Release laser was long range, while the Chidori was performed in close quarters.

As such, the Storm Release guy was relatively unaffected by the explosion that the two jutsu generated, while I was blown backwards by the jutsu.

I flew through the air and landed near my fallen teammates. At some point, Ayano had been taken out by the Kumo kunoichi. She was lying on the ground next to Daisuke, who was looking rather like a porcupine, with countless senbon stuck through his body.

He was in pain.

Guess who generated power through pain?

'Not just my pain,' I realised, 'Through others' pain as well."

I shakily stood up and generated one more Chidori through my left hand. I normally used my right, but my right arm was rather badly burned form the explosion. My left arm would just have to suffice. This Chidori was tinged grey, feeding on Daisuke's pain.

The warbling sound of crows' calls filled the air as the Chidori crackled into existence.

Not just any Chidori.

The grey Chidori. My last resort. Actually, not grey Chidori anymore. It's the Grey Chidori, with a capital 'G.' If it's officially a jutsu and my last resort, it needs a proper name.

I shakily took a step in their direction. I lifted my left hand, Grey Chidori in hand. If this didn't work, we were boned. Boned hard. Boned in a potentially lethal way.

The Storm Release guy smirked and readied his laser thinking this to be the same situation as the last time. I took one more shaky step forwards.

His teammates openly jeered at me.

"He can barely walk! He thinks he can stand up to us?" The kunai slinger snickered.

I took another step forwards.

The kunoichi smiled, "I have to admit, they put up a better fight than I thought they would. But at the end of the day, they'll just have to die, huh? A shame. The white-haired one could be a looker in a year or two."

I shuffled forwards. I stumbled and fell to the ground, the Grey Chidori creating a crater in the ground where my left hand landed. The Chidori still crackled on, undisturbed by the ground.

The Kumo nin laughed even more at my fall. I paid them no mind and stood back up.

I took one more step forwards.

"I guess I'll just end it now, huh?" The Storm Release guy smirked, "Good fight, but it's time for you to learn your place." He sent the laser at me.

I took another step, this one faster than the last. I took another, faster than before. I went faster and faster, until I was at a full out sprint. Then faster than that, the Grey Chidori enhancing my speed.

The laser beam careened closer.

With a feral roar, I charged through the laser, Grey Chidori flaring. The Grey Chidori and the laser colliding in an explosion, not unlike the one made before, except for one crucial difference. The Grey Chidori came out on top.

I flew through the smoke cloud, snarling.

It wasn't enough.

The Kumo nin were surprised, but they were a team for longer. They knew each other and had automatic contingencies in place.

The Storm Release guy threw out another laser. This time, unlike the other lasers which were more just short bursts, this laser was sustained. The beam collided against my Grey Chidori, only slowing me down slightly.

Then, the Kumo kunoichi added her own lightning chakra into the laser, strengthening it, and giving it probably two or three times the destructive power as before. The laser beam flared outwards, easily five metres in diameter.

The Grey Chidori, upon collision with the laser, also flared outwards, responding to the laser's considerable width. Stray bolts of grey lightning flew in random directions.

At first, the loss in speed was rather negligible. But as time went on, the speed loss became greater. My running became laboured, as every step, even with the Chidori-enhanced speed, felt like wading through thick mud.

The laser and the Gray Chidori _exploded._ Exploded in _italics._ When I was blown backwards with a force that felt like several dozen trains, my smoking body streaking through the air. I landed on the ground roughly. Several areas of my body screamed in protest. I had probably broken several bones. Black spots danced across my vision as I fought to stay conscious. I was completely drained of chakra.

Lifting my head up minisculely, I watched the smoke from our explosion clear. There was an enormous smoking crater in the ground, easily reaching fifteen metres in width.

Looking up further, I saw the team of Kumo nin. The kunai slinger was down for the count. He was crackling slightly with grey lightning. He had been hit by a stray bolt of grey lightning from our explosion.

The kunoichi and the Storm Release guys were barely standing, the laser had taken quite a bit out of them. They were done for.

But so were we.

And we were more down for than they were.

No.

 _No._

A team form Iwa had come. They had probably been drawn here by the loud and bright jutsu. They had come to check things out.

Right now, both us and the Kumo team were easy pickings. It was a dream for the Iwa nin, and a nightmare for both us and the Kumo nin.

The Iwa nin stalked closer.

"Hey, Seidome?" Daisuke's hoarse voice reached my ears. I'm surprised. I didn't think that he was conscious still, "Are we gonna die?"

I stared up at the sky. It wasn't that I wanted to, it's just that I was too drained to bother looking anywhere else but the natural direction my head pointed, "Probably, yeah."

Daisuke took in a shaky breath, "Okay. I just wanted you to know that… well… I know we had some rough spots… but uh… "

I breath out from my nose, "It's okay, I got it."

The Iwa nin drew ever closer. They circled both us and the Kumo nin like vultures. I closed my eyes in preparation for death. I had been through it once. Another time couldn't be too bad.

I tried to call up everything I had experienced in this life, and even the life before this one. Who had I been before? The lines between my current life and the last one blurred.

I remembered meeting my team. Ayano, the aloof weapons user, and Daisuke, the hot headed brawler. They were annoying, and at times downright awful, but… they were good teammates. Sort of. Don't remind me of the shit attitude they gave me before. I don't want to think bad thoughts on my deathbed.

And Kakashi. The sensei who was ordered to consign us all to an early grave.

Kakashi's voice echoed through my head, " _I expect you all to cooperate and support one another."_

My eyes opened.

" _You are a_ _ **team**_ "

I drew dark chakra in from the despair that permeated the air around us. Shakily, I got up into a kneeling position.

Daisuke cracked open one eye, "Hey, whatcha doin'?"

"Daisuke, I need you to think of your deepest, darkest thoughts."

"What?"

"Please, for the love of Kami, don't think of porn. We get enough of that from sensei."

"I can't believe this."

"You better believe it!"

"We're about to die," Daisuke droned out, " _And you're cracking jokes about porn and our sensei!"_

"Just think back to your darkest memories, come on man, it's not that hard!"

"Just fucking shut up and let me die!"

"Nope!"

" _Will you just-"_

"Thbbbbt!" I blew a raspberry at him.

That was the last straw for Daisuke, "I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE THAT YOU'RE ACTING LIKE FUCKING _THIS,_ WHEN WE"RE ABOUT TO DIE! DON'T YOU HAVE…"

Oh, I was trying to get him to feel despair by making him remember his darkest memories, but I guess anger works too.

Drawing more from anguish from the Kumo nin, the Iwa nins' predatory intentions, and Daisuke's anger, I pumped dark chakra through my veins. I activated my pain reflex. Pain spiked in various locations around my body.

My veins turned black from the influx of dark chakra. I had never taken so much in at once before. I made a Chidori in my left hand.

This wasn't a Grey Chidori.

It was black.

I had absolutely zero normal chakra left to draw from, so instead, my body used dark chakra exclusively to power the Chidori.

I remember when I introduced myself to my team. I gave all that spiel about how my dream was 'To fully understand and subscribe to the Will of Fire.'

Black lightning crackled dangerously in my hand, giving off lethal discharges.

If this isn't the Will of Fire, then I have no idea what the hell is.

I mean, I _was_ doing this with the help of a teammate.

Maybe friendship really _is_ magic.

Black lightning filled the clearing, as an unbearable pain flared in my left arm.

* * *

 _A/N: I know it's rather cheesy to win things with the power of friendship, but whatever._

 _Feedback is, as always, highly appreciated. Thanks for reading!_


	14. Chapter 14

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

When I woke up, I was in a bed. I assume we made it to the tower alright. It seemed like I was in a hospital?

I tried to sit up, propping my left arm under me to support me while I sat up straight.

 _Thump!_

Only to rather unceremoniously fall back on the bad, because haha, I _have_ no left arm!

Haha! Fucking hilarious, I know! Dispel the Genjutsu Ayano, and let me get back up!

"That's not a Genjutsu, Seidome," Ayano quietly replies from beside my bed. I've really gotta get out of the habit of saying my thoughts aloud.

Wait, so this wasn't a Genjutsu. My arm was gone for real?

It was Daisuke who responded this time, "Yeah. You blew it off with the black lightning." His voice carried a sombre tone. "You saved my life," He added

Damn. My arm was gone for real.

Like, for real, real.

Damn.

Oh well. It's not like there aren't prosthetic options, yeah?

I should be panicking more, right?

Nah.

Besides, this gives me a valid reason to actually get my ass moving on my Shadow Arms. I haven't really been doing much with them, partly because I had jutsu that I needed to master- remind me to thank Kakashi for that shit, saved my life- and partly out of sheer laziness.

I probably could have gotten the Shadow Arms to a reasonable level within the time I had, but I just didn't feel like it. It just seemed like a rather lacklustre skill in comparison with the other stuff, but now it's not a half-assed goal anymore, it's a necessity!

If worst comes to worst, and for whatever reason the Shadow Arms don't work out, I could always just learn Suna's puppetry crap and stick a wooden arm on my shoulder and control it with chakra strings. Plus, there are like a million other prosthetic options in Naruto, right? There are so many ways to replace my arm, it's not even funny. I wonder if they have Automail. Heh.

Wait a minute…

I've died before, which makes me a zombie, sort of. I'm already a ninja. Just now I lost a limb and require a prosthetic.

Does this make me a zombie pirate ninja?

'Zombie ninja pirate ninja _cyborg,'_ I mentally corrected myself. Couldn't forget about the mechanical implants.

I've got the zombie, ninja, and cyborg part of the thing down, but does the prosthetic thing count as a pirate? I'm probably not going to get a wooden prosthetic, and even if I do, I'll only be a pirate in looks. Oh well. I could always just become a pirate the legit way and hijack a boat or something.

I'm not freaking out about my arm, yeah?

Just making sure.

When you think about it, I really don't need any of my limbs. I can just chuck a Shadow Arm on instead. Not that I'm going to actively try to lose my limbs or anything. The only weakness to that is that Shadow Arms require chakra to maintain.

Am I freaking out yet?

No?

Is this a normal reaction to losing a limb? I'm pretty sure becoming an amputee is supposed to be a traumatising experience. Maybe it's because I know that it doesn't really matter? That I can just chuck a Shadow Arm on? Something like that.

Daisuke and Ayano were silent. They looked at me with pity in their eyes. Come on guys! It's not even that bad! Look! I'm totally fine!

I concentrated chakra to the stump of my left arm. The arm was cleanly chopped off right at the shoulder.

A Shadow Arm shot out of my left shoulder, pushing against the bed and catapulting me off of it. I was sent spinning in the air across the room.

I really gotta work on those Shadow Arms.

Am I freaking out now?

Nah.

* * *

 _Interlude: Kakashi_

He had failed again.

Just like all those years ago.

Then again, this team was doomed to fail from the start. He had been clinging onto the hope that this team wouldn't end horribly, but evidently, that was a misplaced hope.

He had tried his best. It was the least he could do after being ordered to send them to the deathtrap of the Chunin exams.

Seidome took an improvised leadership role in the team. In spite of his teammates' slight mistrust of him and his faults, Seidome had managed to be the glue that haphazardly stuck the team together.

Kakashi had _actually_ trained them. Never in his days would he have ever thought that he would be truly dedicated in teaching a bunch of brats, but here he was.

Seeing that Seidome was the team's strongest link, both in combat and as a leader, Kakashi had trained him up in every way, in hopes that he would be better equipped to lead his team into battle.

Seeing that Ayano and Daisuke's skills were woefully average, Kakashi had been hard on them in training, in hopes that they would be able to work with Seidome to break through the hardships to come.

Seeing that their team dynamic was lacking, Kakashi purposefully took the most bandit-infested routes whenever he could, in hopes that through combat, they would emerge better as a team.

He had tried. He truly had. In the end though, it wasn't enough.

Seidome had lost an arm.

The team's strongest player, shattered, like Kakashi's hopes.

Kakashi laid down, facing the ceiling.

He couldn't bear to get up. This was nothing new for him. He had spent countless nights like this, laying in his bed, unable to tame his wildly running thoughts. He had spent countless hours brooding in front of the Memorial Stone, promising that he wouldn't fail again.

He broke his promise.

Kakashi lethargically swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, sighing tiredly. He walked over to the hotel's bathroom and did his normal routine, preparing to deal with his Genin team later in the day.

He looked in the mirror and made an eye smile.

No, too bright.

He tried another one.

No, too fake.

Kakashi went through this routine every morning. His carefree attitude was more of a mask than the one that covered his face.

Underneath all these layers of masks was a man more broken than anyone knew. The years had not taught him how to cope with his past mistakes. They had only taught him how better to cover them. It looked as though this new Genin team was only one more mistake to add to a long list.

But Seidome was a strong one. Perhaps he would prove him wrong.

* * *

This is fucking awesome! Why had I never bothered to learn this shit before?

A lone rubbery white rubbery Shadow Arm extended from my left shoulder in place of my missing left arm. The Shadow Arm flailed wildly, much like a fish out of water. It knocked over various pieces of furniture in the room in its uncontrolled rampage.

There is absolutely no finesse in this. But if controlling the thing normally was even half as fun as this, I think I have zero regrets with losing my arm.

Hell, why not just cut off my right arm too? These things were so much better!

That was the scene that my teammates walked in on.

"Hey guys!" I excitedly yelled, "What's going on?"

Daisuke gave me an incredulous look, then just gave me a resigned look. Damn. They're getting inoculated to my bullshit, "Just… get over here. They're announcing the third stage in an hour." He and Ayano glanced down at my

I cheerfully walked out of the room with my team, down to the lobby of the hospital. With a little bit of hassle, we managed to get me cleared to go. I think the only reason they let me go was because of the Chunin exams.

Whatever. It's not like I really needed to stay in the hospital anyways. My regeneration factor was on par to a Jinchuuriki's. Probably because I am one. Sort of. Maybe? I don't really know what's going on with the Reibi.

Of course, the amount of regenerative ability I have can't overcome an amputation. Not like I needed that arm anyways. Shadow Arms were so much cooler! If a bit creepy and chakra taxing They didn't actually take as much chakra as you'd think, but keeping one active for the whole day in place of my arm was bound to make my reserves dip a bit.

Pushing our way out of the hospital and into the streets of Kumo, we made our way to the place where the third stage was being announced.

There were only three teams that made it to the final stage. Huh. I though there were going to be more. Then again, the only Chunin exams that I had seen were the ones in canon, which had so many passes that they had to do preliminaries to cut down the numbers. So maybe the small number of passes was normal.

I stood on my toes and looked around for the Storm Release guy and his teammates. I _really_ wanted to bash their skulls for the shit they caused me-us, we were a team. So… they shit the caused _us_.

The problem was, I couldn't find them.

"Yo, Daisuke, you know the the jackass with the lasers? Where is he? I want to bash his skull in."

Daisuke shot me a weird look, "You killed them with your black lightning thing," Daisuke didn't seem at all disturbed by the death anymore. Good, "You also took out the Iwa team. Along with pretty much the entire area around us. We made it here with three badges. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

Ayano answered me, "The badges were malformed and more or less broken from your black lightning. You could barely tell that they were badges. Nonetheless, the proctors counted them."

I nodded. Thinking back to it, what had even happened? I didn't even question it when I woke up in the bed in the tower. I had no idea what the story was after I made the Black Chidori.

Being able to read me pretty well at this point, or perhaps I had spoken aloud, Daisuke opened his mouth, "After the… stuff happened and you fell unconscious, we carried you to the tower. Nothing crazy happened, really."

"Cool."

Seeing that all the teams were assembled, the proctor began his speech. I was prepared for a long and boring one like all the ones before, but this guy… gave a long and boring speech like the other proctors. Seriously, it's like these people have nothing better to do than spouting a bunch of inspirational bullshit at children who're about to violently brawl with one another in the name of catching the a daimyo's attention.

"Alright, listen up you little fuckers! You did pretty well last stage, but this one is the real test! You're going to brutalize each other for the enjoyment of a crowd this stage! Blah blah blah teamwork! Blah blah blah determination! Friendship is magic! Suck my dick!"

Okay, I might have paraphrased a bit.

A bit.

We were called up to draw numbers. I reached for the box of numbers with my left hand, only to lose my balance, because, haha! I have no left hand!

I probably should have concealed my amputation better. Now everybody knows that I'm missing an arm.

Oh well. It would be funny to see the look on their faces when I whipped out a Shadow Arm.

Ayano got number one, Daisuke got number nine, and I got number eight. Ayano would have the first fight of the day, Daisuke got a by, and I would have the last fight. I actually had no idea who I was up against. I'd probably just wing it.

With our numbers drawn, we headed back to hotel to meet up with Kakashi and had back home to Konoha. We cracked open the door to the hotel.

Only for _fucking Kakashi_ to spring out of the goddamn door like a fucking jack-in-the-box! Fuck! I hate jumpscares! Frickin'... _Kakashi_! You fucking troll!

* * *

The journey back to Konoha was strangely subdued.

Daisuke spared another glance at my left arm.

My lack of one.

This is ridiculous. It's like they've never seen an amputee before! I will conveniently forget the fact that they _haven't._ The minute I back to Konoha, I'll find a way to find my amputated arm. I don't need the pitiful looks.

We took a different route back this time. This one was entirely free of bandits, which put me on guard. The absence of bandits was strange, especially because in basically every road that we had travelled, there had been bandits.

I was especially on guard because, unlike the last times, I only had one arm. This meant that I couldn't do traditional hand seals. Could I use Shadow Arms to channel chakra? They could definitely channel chakra, they could absorb it, after all, but could they be used to make hand seals and perform jutsu? A question for when my control with them is better.

For now, though, I was down an arm and stuck with no hand seals. The only jutsu I could perform sealless were the lightning hounds, a C-Rank jutsu that didn't have very much range and wasn't really intended for open combat. I wasn't exactly confident in my ability to handle a threat.

I palmed a kunai and slipped my sole arm in a pocket, fingers gripping the kunai tightly, holding it in a reverse grip.

Kakashi was busy reading his Icha Icha, Daisuke was shooting me pitying looks every now and then, and though Ayano pretended to be aloof as ever, I could sometimes catch her staring at me out of the corner of my eye.

Oh damn, my eye.

They had seen it. I was completely drained of chakra during the fight, so the henge I normally kept over it was dispelled.

I'll take it as a good sign that they hadn't made a big deal over it.

But the pitying looks were really annoying.

Honestly, I preferred the cold, disgusted attitude from before. At least I sort of knew how to deal with that.

Konoha couldn't come fast enough.

* * *

The minute I made it back to Konoha, I went to a clothing store. I needed some new clothes to hide my missing limb.

An hour later, I walked out of the store, rather pleased with the result.

I had basically stolen Sasuke's outfit from Next Generations. Not really, I only took inspiration from the cloak. I now wore a black sleeveless cloak that was unfastened at the front to allow for easy movement, and reached my knees over my previous outfit. It obscured the red mesh shirt and most of the black shinobi pants that I wore under it.

With my new outfit, I walked around Konoha to look for Naruto. I had the perfect prank for us to pull. After I met up with Naruto I'd have to get serious with my Shadow Arms if I wanted to stand a chance at the tournament in a month.

I found Naruto at the first place I checked, Ichiraku Ramen.

I raised my hand out of the front of my cloak and waved at him. The cloak remained mostly closed, concealing my body for the most part, "Hey Naruto."

Naruto span around on his stool and his eyes widened comically, "You're back!" He ran at me with arms spread wide open in preparation for a hug.

I let him wrap his arms around me. He stiffened. Ah, he felt the missing pieces on my left side. I looked down at him with a small smile on my lips. I silently brought my hand up my face and put one finger up to my lips in a ' _Shh'_ gesture.

He sniffled a little bit and gave me another hug.

I wrapped my lone arm around him, the absence of the other one in the hug giving further confirmation to his suspicions.

He held me tighter.

It was good to be back.

* * *

 _Omake: 'Tis the Season_

I ran scooted around on the rooftop, trying to find the best view from which to see our creation. Naruto and I had woken up early to set this up.

"It's beautiful," Naruto said from beside me.

"Yeah," I sat down, "We really outdid ourselves this time, huh?"

Holiday lights were strung all across the Hokage monument, blinking on and off. Unusually for the Land of Fire, which had a mild climate all year round, there was snow falling from the sky.

I had ordered twenty sealing scrolls full of snow from the Land of Snow, a bunch of lightbulbs, coloured glass, and wiring. Boy, those merchants had been confused. It had taken me much of my savings to pull off, but in the end, it gave me a nostalgic taste of home.

I had made some jury-rigged Christmas lights from the stuff I got off the merchants and powered them using lightning jutsu. We had rigged up a several complicated contraptions to launch the snow from the seals into the sky.

I had went around Konoha the other day, looking for other materials. They had been relatively easy to find. It's not like the stuff I was looking for was some mystical ninja weapon or anything.

I made hot chocolate.

"Hey, Naruto," I passed over a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

"Uh, thanks?" He took the cup from me and carefully took a sip, "Hey! This is good stuff!" He hurriedly sipped the cup, only to burn his mouth on the hot beverage, "Ow! Ow! Hot!"

I shook my head in amusement. We sat in silence for a while, just two friends enjoying their time together. I brought my cup down from my lips, "Merry Christmas, Naruto."

He looked at me and cocked his head sideways. He shrugged and laughed lightly, "You and your strange sayings."

Snow fell from the sky. It bounced off of my cloak. I had swapped out the normally black piece of clothing for a bright one resembling the ugly sweaters of yore.

The village began to wake up as the day began. Children screamed in delight as they watched the snow slowly drifting to the ground.

I smiled. Friendship was magic, huh?

Beautiful.

* * *

 _A/N: Happy Holidays, y'all! Sorry, the update was a bit late this time 'round. I actually finished this one yesterday, but I forgot to upload it and worked on the next chapter instead._

 _I know that heavy body modifications are oftentimes controversial, but it's something that I had planned since the beginning, and important future events are affected because of it._

 _I have no idea how this chapter turned out how it did. Seidome's loss of an arm was meant to lead to an angsty realisation of the consequences of his actions and to illustrate his impulsiveness. Clearly that didn't happen. It ended up just being him dicking around with the Shadow Arms. The angsty Kakashi interlude was meant to fit that theme of consequences, but the bright and cheery Seidome afterwords clashed with it weirdly… so yeah._

 _Dragon of the Blazing Stars: I cracked a smile at that. 'Pain of Friendship' is right!_

 _Guest: I'm not quite certain about pairings. We'll just have to wait and see what it'll be if it happens. Romance is a big commitment in real life, and it seems out of character for Seidome. Pairings are rather controversial in SI's, not being liked by many, myself included sometimes. Pika5490 commented on this too, saying that Seidome's fine the way he is, with no pairing, and I'm inclined to agree. I'm not exactly planning for a pairing. That being said, I only sort of have some vague idea of where the story is going, so quite a few things are subject to change._


	15. Chapter 15

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

You know what this training field needed?

Explosions.

Lots of explosions.

The day I learned one handed seals was a good day.

My one manipulation of one handed seals was incomplete though, so for some techniques, I had to form a Shadow Arm to make traditional hand seals. The Shadow Arm could form from any part of my body, so I mostly just formed it from my elbow if I needed to make hand seals.

For the past month, I had worked on my control of my Shadow Arms, among other things. My control with them was good enough that the Shadow Arms could pass for a normal arm in terms of functionality. Sort of. It was still a bit rough around the edges, but I was getting there.

I worked on other stuff too. I had implemented my idea to have more than one lightning hound at a time, and it worked _beautifully._ I could only control two at a time right now.

With my knowledge of one handed seals, I had relearned the Rat Tremor. I had spent my entire month training them up to the same level that they were before, with four discs

It seemed that Kakashi's training had only gotten more brutal. Or maybe it was the same level as before, just that my amputation had made things more difficult. Probably a combination of both.

For example, I couldn't do normal pushups anymore. I could only do one handed ones, which I promise are significantly harder than the normal ones. I could have just used shadow arms to give me a boost, but that would have defeated the purpose of the physical conditioning.

I tried to get Kakashi to teach me the Summoning Jutsu, but he said that it was too dangerous to try to get a summon. I pouted, but they were so cool! Kakashi had just shaken his head and told me that he might teach me as a reward if I won the Chunin exam tournament.

So I trained hard this last month. Learning one handed seals was a pain in the _ass._ I felt so crippled in the chakra department without my left arm. Again, I could've used Shadow Arms and left it at that, but not only are one handed seals a good thing to learn, but I might not always be in a position to make a Shadow Arm. It was best to just learn the damn one handed seals, no matter how awful they were to master.

Speaking of chakra and jutsu and whatnot, I had added more jutsu to my repertoire. Lightning balls, lightning spider webs, for some reason, a lightning fish, and the one I was most excited for: straight up lightning.

The B-Rank lightning spear of Kakuzu himself, False Darkness. Oh hell yes. The thing spat out a bolt of lightning that could pierce through _rocks._ Granted, the Chidori and basically all of my jutsu could do that if I overcharged them with enough chakra, but this one was just _badass._

Besides the Chidori, this one was probably my fastest jutsu, and it was for all ranges, which was a nice bonus.

With my arm gone, my Ninjutsu became that much more important. The extra training in jutsu was meant to compensate for my amputation, and _hot damn_ was it effective. I was thinking about learning Kenjutsu, as the extra reach of a sword would also cover for my lost arm, but swords aren't really my style, I feel. Maybe a warhammer, or a kama. Maybe even a battle guitar, or whatever the hell Madara used. Wasn't it a fan, actually? It looked like a guitar. The Gunbai was pretty badass though.

I put my hand on the ground and channeled lightning chakra from my hand. Lightning soon covered the ground in the form of a spider web that spanned easily fifty metres. I grinned and made the web sink a few metres into the ground.

I clenched my fingers into a fist, gripping strands of lightning. As I raised my hand up, the parts of the web directly attached to my also raised up. With a quick yank and an application of chakra, the entire web was pulled into the air, along with the two metres of soil that the web was buried under. Rocks and trees weren't spared, the roots of the trees being pulled up with the dirt.

The web continued to pull the vast amount of material skywards. About a hundred metres above the ground, my influence over the web began to weaken, and the most massive objects pulled by the web began to fall. This is where the fun really begins.

A massive boulder was falling almost directly overhead. I dispelled my lightning web in favour of a Chidori, which plowed through the boulder and reduced it to little more than small rocks and dust. As the rest of the mass of dirt and trees drew closer, I prepared more jutsu. Shadow Arms snaked their way out from under my cloak. I discovered that, with my Shadow Arms, I could perform more than one jutsu at a time by forming hand seals with the Arms.

They were chakra constructs, so chakra could easily be transferred through them, and they had fingers, so they could make hand seals. They were perfect. Sort of. They required mentally taxing multitasking skills, so I could hardly focus on more than one pair of arms at a time, but that was essentially double the jutsu casting speed, in theory.

In practise however, my skill with the Arms still wasn't high enough for maximum hand seal speed, so it was more like one and a half times as many jutsu.

Still, that was a huge improvement to my jutsu casting speed, which was especially noticeable in a situation in which a large amount of jutsu had to be thrown at the same time.

Such as right now.

Lightning balls, lightning fish, and lightning hounds circled the air like hawks, pulverising everything they came in contact with. Spears of lightning from False Darkness pierced through the roof of dirt that came raining down. Webs of lightning ensnared large clumps of dirt. Rat Tremor discs exploded upon impact with the mass of dirt, trees, and rocks.

Great holes opened up in the giant mass of dirt, resembling several moons in a night sky. Except these moons crackled with electricity around the edges.

The crackling of lightning could scarcely be heard over the cacophony of falling forest floor. It was as though an insane orchestral conductor was frantically leading a symphony of natural disasters.

Shadow arms and lightning animals appeared protectively overhead, making a sort of umbrella and shielding me from the wall of dirt that came crashing in. The forest would be entirely unrecognisable after all of this was over.

It was beautiful.

I love explosions.

* * *

The Hokage looked at me with a blank stare. His pipe hung out of his mouth loosely. He looked from me, to the window, and then back to me. He laid his pipe gently down on the table.

He banged his forehead against his desk and looked up wearily.

"Seidome, you do understand that the training fields are for _everyone_ to use, yes?"

I cocked my head sideways. "Of course, Hokage-sama." Where was he going with this?

"You do not own the fields."

"Yeah? I know… " Was there something that I was missing here?

" _So explain to me why Training Ground Seventeen looks like the battleground for several S-Ranked shinobi!"_

I blinked owlishly. So that's where he was going with this. I looked out the window at the village's training grounds. There was a clearly something wrong with one of the training grounds. One of them looked like like, as the Hokage put it, the battleground of several S-Rank Shinobi.

The clean and more or less uniformity of the forest was interrupted by a large patch of brown, uneven geography. The upturned earth had fallen to the ground unevenly, their fall disrupted by my upwardly aimed jutsu.

The brown patch had the interesting feature of having artificial mountains and sinkholes, formed by the by the unevenly distributed earth. The entire patch sparked impossibly with lightning. I'm pretty sure that's not how electricity works, but whatever.

Various shinobi could be seen, filling in sinkholes and tearing down mountains. They weren't making very much progress in fixing the training ground.

"I didn't do it?" I replied meekly to the Hokage. He raised an eyebrow and pointed at the large amount of dirt I had tracked into his office. I winced.

Clearly my umbrella of Shadow Arms and lightning animals wasn't as effective as I thought it would be. Using a lightning spider web would have been a much more reasonable approach for shielding myself, but the lightning animals were so much cooler!

The lightning animals had functioned reasonably well for filtering out the larger, more dangerous objects, but did little to keep the copious amount of dirt from falling in. I was lucky to be in an area where there was a comparatively small amount of dirt, otherwise I would have been buried alive.

From the dirt shower, my clothes had accumulated a coating of dirt, which I tracked in wherever I went. Even right now, as I sat in the Hokage's office, small clumps of earth flaked off of my cloak onto the floor.

"It wasn't my fault!" I shouted. I decided to switch tactics, "It's just that… jutsu are so cool! And explosions solve everything!"

The Hokage raised an eyebrow, "How about diplomacy?"

"Diplomacy? Who needs to speak when explosions talk for themselves?" I waved my hand dismissively, "And besides, solving problems with explosions worked out pretty well for the Yondaime."

The Hokage's eyebrow raised further and he motioned for me to continue.

"He ended the the Third Shinobi World War with a slaughter of epic proportions."

"That event did not end the war," The Hokage said patiently, "If you had been listening during the Academy, you would have known that."

"It basically ended the war," I shot back, "That was the last straw for Iwa and you know it."

The Hokage nodded approvingly, "Still, this is not the Third Shinobi World War, and you are certainly no Yondaime Hokage. So allow me to ask again, _what happened to the training field?"_

"It was Kakashi-sensei's fault?" My answer sounded more like a question.

This was going to be a long day.

* * *

"So uh, what _did_ happen to Training Ground Seventeen?" Naruto asked me, slurping on his ramen.

I shrugged. "I just got overzealous with some jutsu. That's all." Ayame and Teuchi prepared ramen, but listened in on our conversation. The rumours of my involvement with the destruction- _ahem-_ remodeling of Training Ground Seventeen had spread like a wildfire across the village.

"What's overzee… overzal… overzwaaa…"

"Overzealous."

"Yeah that! What does it mean?"

"I basically got too trigger-happy with my jutsu."

"What kind of jutsu caused _that?"_

"A combination of various ones that I've learned. I've been training hard for the past month and I guess I just wanted to see the fruits of my labour."

"So cool! I wish I were be a shinobi! There are so many cool jutsu to learn and so many cool missions and awesome shinobi stuff! So cool! The Academy is so boring!"

I quirked my lips in a smile, "Yeah… the Academy can be rather dull at times, huh?"

"I'm sorry, _am I interrupting something_?" Naruto and I both stiffen. Frickin' _Iruka_ of all people walks up behind us. A vein in his forehead is pulsing dangerously. That can't be healthy.

I said the first thing that came to mind, "Uh… it looks like you have some pretty high blood pressure? You might want to get that checked out."

Under any other circumstance, Iruka's reddening face and pulsating veins would have been hilarious.

Who am I kidding? It would always be frickin' _terrifying._

Is this how I die?

* * *

 _Kumo_

The noisy crowd roared in the stands of the huge stadium that we were in. There were probably somewhere around three thousand people seated. It seemed that everyone, from Daimyos to merchants to skilled shinobi, to kages were in the audience. Of course, the people with loftier positions got the best seats in various balconies and boxes.

All nine of the Genin who had passed the second stage were seated up on a balcony above the stadium. None of us spoke. Everyone was nervous, even if they didn't admit it. I could feel the nervous energy pumping dark chakra into my system. Great.

The proctor walked to the middle of the stadium and the crowd went quiet. "The first fight will be between Nakamura Ayano of Konoha and Sato Eitaro of Kumo!"

"Good luck out there," I muttered to Ayano as she passed by. Daisuke patted her on the back. She nodded and walked down the stairs to the arena. I watched the arena eagerly.

Ayano and Eitaro faced each other in the arena. They were engaged in pre-battle insult-slinging, as all good shinobi did.

The proctor put his arm in between them. Ayano's legs tightened like springs and she reached down to her kunai pouch. Eitaro put his hands near each other, preparing to form hand seals.

"Hajime!"

The instant the proctor started them, they both leapt backwards. Ayano gripped her kunai and sent them flying towards Eitaro. He finished his hand seals and spat out a rather impressive wave of water, which had the effect of both deflecting the kunai, and forcing her to dodge.

Ayano leapt out of the way of the water and sent a volley of senbon at Eitaro. He easily sidestepped the senbon and sent water bullets at Ayano, which she sidestepped.

The battle continued on in this fashion. The opponents never managed to land a hit more damaging than a light cut on one another. The fight had devolved into a battle of attrition.

Unfortunately for Ayano, Eitaro had the upper hand in stamina. He slowly wore away at her energy, until he started managing to hit her more often than she did him. Eitaro finally managed to get in a firm blow to her head, which knocked her unconscious. The fight had ended rather disappointingly. Really, the whole fight was a disappointment. Still, a win was a win, and Eitaro looked at Ayano's fallen form with a smug grin.

The crowd clapped politely for the two combatants. It wasn't an ear-shattering roar, or vicious jeering, just polite applause for a disappointing battle.

"The next fight will be between Tanaka Fumio of Kumo and Abe Hiromasa of Iwa!" Ah, a bunch of fights that I couldn't care less about. Let's just tune them out, then. I spent the next twenty minutes or so humming random tunes from Earthland. I got bored of that, so I just decided to take a nap.

Daisuke nudged my shoulder, jostling me from my sleep. He lost his balance slightly as he misjudged the distance to my shoulder on the side with no arm on it. "Seidome, you're up."

"Hmm? Sure." I sleepily walked down the stairway, yawning and stretching out. I made my way down to the arena, where I faced a cockily smirking Kumo shinobi. He was a few years older than I was, and towered over me by a head and a half.

"Looking for a beatdown, One Arm?" Really? One Arm? That was the best insulting nickname that he could give me that pertained to my amputation? "This'll be easy."

"Mhmm."

"Combatants, ready?"

"Ready to kick his ass!" Hoo boy. This guy was confident.

"Sure."

The proctor put his arm between us, "Hajime!"

The Kumo nin flipped backwards. I didn't move an inch. He sneered at me, "What? Giving up already?"

"No. It's just that I've already won."

A lightning fish darted through the front of my cloak and swam through the air. The fish collided with the Kumo nin, sending him flying backwards, unconscious.

The proctor was there immediately, calling my victory, "Seidome of Konoha has won the match!"

The crowd, in response, sent a mild applause to my victory. It had been a rather anticlimactic one-hit knockout.

I shuffled out of the arena, disappointed with the round.

* * *

I wandered the streets of Kumo, looking for something interesting to buy. I figured that I might as well grab Naruto a present while I'm here. People are whispering about me as I pass by. Damn. I might've goofed when I ended that fight with one move. Whatever. Can't change it now.

"That's the one, right?"

"I heard he's a monster."

"He beat Akari with one move!"

Akari, that was the name of the guy I beat? Does it really matter though? He's already beaten. I won't be seeing him down the line.

"I bet he's really strong."

"There's no way he beat Akari with one move! He must've cheated!"

"Is that him?"

"Do you think he'd say yes if I asked him out?"

Oh hell no! The fuck? This is a goddamn shinobi village! Why the hell would you ask _me_ , a guy from an opposing shinobi village, on a date?

Unless, of course, you were digging for information and/or wanted to kill me. That was always a viable reason. But if this _is_ a legitimate fangirl, I'm hightailing the hell out of here! There's no way in hell that I'm dealing with that shit!

"Hey! You, in the black cloak!"

I quickly shuffled in the opposite direction. I moved tried to move quickly, but not too quickly, making a subtle retreat away from the potential fangirl.

"Hey! Why are you running away?"

Okay, so maybe not that subtle.

"Come back!"

Gotta go fast!

 _Later that Day…_

"How was your shopping trip," Damn him. How did Kakashi know everything?

"Screw off."

"Aw, don't be like that."

"Go away."

"Just imagine! What if you said yes? Then you could've-"

"Stop."

"-taken her back here, then I would've had a free show! It might even be almost as good as Icha Icha. Almost as good. There will never be anything as good as Icha Icha."

"I hate you."

"Are you imagining it? Your hand running up her-"

" _I hate you."_

* * *

 _Next Day:_

We drew numbers again at the contestant's balcony. I was up first this time. Instead of walking down the stairs like a normal person, I jumped right off the balcony, my cloak billowing behind me. I landing on the ground in a kneel, and slowly got up.

Hey, a guy's gotta get his testosterone flowing, yeah?

I locked eyes on my opponent, another Kumo shinobi. This one didn't look as confident as the one yesterday, most likely due to my one-move win yesterday's match.

The proctor put his arms between us. He tensed up, ready to move.

"Hajime!"

He charged right at me, fist drawn back in a horribly telegraphed punch. He arrived in front of me much faster than I thought he would. He's fast, I'll give him that much.

But not fast enough.

Just before his punch could reach me, I sidestepped to the left. I made no move to counterattack, my arm hanging by my side beneath my cloak. He moved in for another punch. I once again sidestepped.

I danced circles around him, my head not really in the fight. This was too easy. The canon Chunin exams seemed a lot harder than this. Why is that? Nevermind, I see. For some ungodly reason, all of the clan heirs are in Naruto's generation. Even in the other villages, like the Sand Siblings. The Chunin exams was so full of good ninja that year, that they had to hold preliminaries to reduce the number of contestants in the-

The Kumo nin threw a punch at my face, which I avoided by tilting my head out of the way slightly. I've always wanted to do something like that. It always looked so cool in video game trailers! I caught his fist in my hand, and tossed him overhead.

-tournament. So it's not that this exam was an especially easy one, actually it was pretty average, it's just that the one shown in canon was absolutely ridiculous, filled to the brim as it was with clan heirs and whatnot.

Or maybe I _am_ that good. You never know what sort of shit that Orochimaru threw onto me. At this point, I don't exactly feel bitter about the years of my life that he stole away. The modifications that he made to my body are what pushed me to the point that I'm at right now. I have no doubt that without his modifications, I would be nowhere near the level of strength that I was at right now.

Perhaps it was Kakashi too. Kakashi's real training was grueling, insane, and effective. When Kakashi got down and serious, he could be _terrifying._ It really called to mind some of the more… _exotic_ forms of training that Kakashi had subjected us to. Or actually, not _us,_ just me. For whatever reason, Kakashi reveled in causing me as much pain as possible.

It was probably a combination of both Kakashi's ridiculous training regime and Orochimaru dicking around with body modifications that put me where I am right now.

The Kumo nin pushed himself up to stand. How was he so tired already? Has that much time passed? I didn't think I was too deep in thought. I mean, I have this habit of tuning out the boring-ass speeches of superiors and thinking about stuff instead, but it wasn't bad enough that the same thing happened in real fights, was it?

The Kumo nin was now lying in a completely different part of the arena, sweating profusely and breathing heavily. He was so exhausted that he could barely stand.

"Hey, you alright over there?"

The Kumo nin tiredly raised his gaze to meet mine. His eyes shone with fury, "I do not need your concern, _Konoha shinobi."_

Damn, was he insulting Konoha? In front of the Konoha shinobi that was currently kicking his ass? He's got guts, at the very least.

Actually, I wasn't exactly kicking his ass, considering that the only time that I had ever touched him this round was in that one counterattack. It was more like he was kicking his own ass.

I walked slowly over to where he was standing, leaning against a rock that jutted out of the arena's floor, "So… uh… having a nice day?"

He glared at me harder. With great effort, he clenched his fist and raised his arm. He punched me. The punch was terribly slow, lacking the vigor that he attacked me with earlier. He must've been really tired. Poor guy.

I leaned out of the way of his punch. I concentrated a tiny amount of lightning chakra to my index finger. My hand found its way out of my cloak. My hand drifted slowly closer to his face, my index finger glowing with a miniscule amount of lightning.

"Boop!" I cheerfully cried out loud. My index finger lightly poked right between the eyes. The small amount of lightning chakra proved too much for his exhausted body to take, and he fell over backwards.

"Seidome of Konoha wins this round!"

Seriously, too easy.

I strolled out of the arena, once again, to the polite applause of the crowd. My performance had, again, been underwhelming. Audiences don't like wins that aren't flashy, unless they're full of struggle and have stories behind them.

Daisuke was walking down the stairs at the same time that I was walking up.

I grinned at him, "Kick their ass!' I gave him a tiny raised fist.

He gave me a weak smile in response, but said nothing. I can feel the nervous energy surrounding him, feeding the Reibi. Who was he up against?

I walked up the rest of the stairs to the contestant's balcony to watch Daisuke's fight. I had missed the announcement of names and the beginning of the fight. Daisuke and the other guy, another Kumo shinobi, were already fighting. Daisuke was losing. Badly.

Any time that Daisuke would try to attack, he would be intercepting by swirling silver sand, ayyy tongue twister! Swirling silver sand, swirling silver sand, swirling silver sand, swirling silver sand…

Isn't that Gaara's thing though? Er, actually, in general, Suna's thing? Maybe not, I guess.

So Daisuke was getting intercepted every time that he tried to throw an attack. The Magnet Release guy wasn't even moving from his spot. He didn't have to, not when Daisuke had no way of getting to him. The Magnet Release guy raised his hands up. In his frustration, Daisuke didn't even notice his raised hands.

The silver sand shot outwards and grabbed Daisuke by the foot. "Surrender," the Magnet Release guy said in a dull, monotone voice.

Daisuke looked at him in fear, "I… surrender," he hung his head low in shame. The Magnet Release guy dropped him unceremoniously to the ground.

"Winner: Watanabe Eiji of Kumo!" The crowd, in stark contrast to my mild reception, _roared_ for his victory, This guy was a popular figure then. He probably belonged to a clan, possible he was even the clan heir.

The rest of the rounds were fought throughout the day, with an hour long intermission in between. Every fight was decided except for the finals, which would be held tomorrow.

I would be fighting the Magnet Release guy.

This could prove to be interesting.

* * *

 _Next Day:_

I sat on the contestant's balcony. I searched for Daisuke, Ayano, and Kakashi in the vast sea of faces in the audience. After two minutes of looking, I labelled it a lost cause. Sitting beside me with his eyes closed was the Magnet Release guy. I would be fighting him in a few minutes.

The proctor walked into the arena, "This is the Chunin exam tournament's final round! The matchup is Seidome of Konoha versus Watanabe Eiji of Kumo!"

You know, I should be calling him by his actual name, Eiji. He made it this far in the tournament, and he had beaten Daisuke, so perhaps it'd be a show of respect to actually use his name rather than refer to him as, 'The Magnet Release Guy.'

Neither of us bothered using the stairs. Eiji flew down to the arena using his silver sand, and I just jumped off like a normal person.

Like a normal person.

Hilarious.

Eiji and I stared each other down. The proctor waved his hand in between us, "Hajime!"

Neither of us moved a muscle.

This would take a while.

 _Three hours later…_

I was sitting down, doodling little pictures on the ground with my lightning spider webs. Eiji did much the same thing, except with his silver sand.

The crowd was moaning at our lack of a good show. Many of them were asleep, not expecting any sort of action to happen between us.

I grinned at Eiji, "Hey."

He looked up. His shoulder length brown hair shook in the wind that seemed to forever blow in Kumo. His inquisitive coal-black eyes sparkled in mischief. He knew exactly what I was doing. We were both the same, after all.

We both coasted through the tournament easily and were now bored.

We both were comfortable with a ridiculous amount of violence and pointless destruction.

And we both loved fucking with people.

"Wanna play rock, paper, scissors?" I proposed, "Winner wins the Chunin exams?"

He grinned back at me, "Best two out of three though."

We chanted in unison, "Rock... "

The crowd started booing.

"Paper…"

People started to get out of their seats and leave the stadium.

"Scissor…"

More people got up and started to leave.

"Lightning!" _("Silver!")_

Everyone _sat the fuck_ down at the sudden clash of our jutsu. He unleashed a river of silver dust at me, while I sent some lightning balls at him. My lightning, unlike how I thought it'd act, didn't conduct at _freaking_ _all_ through his silver sand.

He seemed to be smug about his silver blocking my lightning balls. Let's wipe that smug grin off his face, yeah? I made one-handed seals underneath my cloak. He went in for another thrust with his sand, just as the sand was about to reach me, False Darkness ripped its way out of my hand and punctured right through the wall of sand.

Through the hole that I made in his attack, I was that his sand had formed a protective barrier around him and it had shielded him from False Darkness.

Fine then! Let's kick it up a notch. I charged up a Chidori in my hand. The chirping bundle of lightning chakra crackled dangerously. He didn't even give a shit, a bored look was on his face. It didn't feel good to have your own game thrown back at you.

This asshole thought he could disrespect the lightning? Challenge fucking accepted. I poured the dark chakra that I had collected from the nervousness of the contestants. My Chidori became grey.

I had undergone training for my Grey Chidori over the month that they had given us. I could now use it without draining all of my chakra or passing out, so long as I had a good amount of dark chakra.

Luckily for me, the nervous tension in the contestant's balcony, the frustration of my earlier opponents, and my own anger provided more than enough dark chakra to power up the Grey Chidori.

As dark chakra was fed into the Chidori, Eiji put a more serious look on his face. His sand swirled around angrily. Shit was getting real.

With feral roars, we charged at one another, Grey Chidori on my side, a tidal wave of silver dust on Eiji's.

* * *

The Raikage looked at us with a calculating look on his face. His pale eyebrow was twitching, the only sign of annoyance on his face.

Eiji and I shifted around nervously. Our movements caused the layer of dust and debris that covered us to tumble to the ground.

"Please explain to me," the Raikage began, "How you two managed to destroy an _entire Kami damned stadium!"_ His voice became a roar at the of his question.

"Uh…" Eiji you brave, brave soul, "Technically, we only destroyed half of it." Somehow, Eiji managed to say exactly what I would have said, had I the bravery to talk to the Raikage.

Actually, screw it, "It was more like three-quarters."

Eiji whirled on me, "You're not helping!" He continued, "And it was totally your fault too!"

"My fault?" I am offended, "How the hell is it my fault!?"

"You're the one that escalated things that far!" Eiji points an accusing finger at me, "I would have been just fine settling things with rock paper scissors, but _nooo_ , you just had to use jutsu at the end! Then you pulled out that insane lightning jutsu! What the hell was I supposed to do!?"

"You were supposed to surrender! I-"

I was cut off by the Raikage's roar, " _Shut the hell up!"_

Both Eiji and I were suitably cowed. The Raikage was deep in though, no doubt wondering how he would clean up the mess that we made. Luckily, there were no casualties in our destruction of the stadium, or else that would've been _really_ messy.

"So…" I meekly began, "Who won?"

The Raikage looked up at me incredulously. That was an emotion that I never thought I'd see from a man as terrifying as this guy. Slowly, his face contorted in anger.

"OUT! NOW! BOTH OF YOU, OUT!"

* * *

 _A/N: Christmas Eve guys! Thanks for reading and stay safe out there._


	16. Chapter 16

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

We all were promoted to Chunin.

In hindsight, it was the obvious outcome, so long as we made it to the third stage. The village wanted us to get out from under Kakashi as quickly as possible, and they were the ones that were giving us the promotion. If we didn't make it to the third stage, it'd seem a little fishy that we were getting promoted. Since we made it though, the village could just whip up some bullshit 'Will of Fire' spiel and shuffle us along.

I'm not sure whether to be happy or not with my promotion. On one hand, I was a Chunin now, on the other, I lost Kakashi as a sensei. Kakashi was _serious_ with a training, and was a damn good sensei.

Then again, I can do some missions away from my team now. Even though we were pretty cool now, it was, at times, a little stifling to be around them.

With my new Chunin buddies, I ain't gotta worry about that! I can just cut loose and murder bandits as I please! Am I right, guys?!

If you took a look at our location, you probably couldn't tell that it used to be a bandit camp. It resembled a nuclear disaster area, with all of the makeshift homes that the bandits used lying a large heaps of smoking rubble, all crackling with electricity. There were a few lucky, or unlucky depending on how you looked at it, bandits lying in the wreckage. Though my explosive jutsu hadn't killed them immediately, they had been dismembered and gored by my various jutsu, and had been left, slowly dying, in the rubble.

One of my Chunin teammates vomited on the ground.

Wimp.

* * *

I walked in the pristine hallways of a minor lord's mansion. My cloak, covered in grime, blood, and whatever the hell else was on me, dripped various icky things onto the luscious carpet. I carried a scroll in my hands.

The lord's attendants and assistants stared at me as I walked through the mansion. I paid them no mind. I just gotta finish my mission, yeah?

Reaching the door of the lord's office, I sharply rapped on the rich mahogany door. One of the lord's assistants promptly answered the door, only to be taken aback by my rather disheveled appearance.

"Yo, got a message for a... " I looked over the scroll, "Yokoyama Atomu?"

The lord looked up from his paperwork and peered at me over rectangular glasses, "That would be me," He took in my appearance and put on a rather shocked expression, "If I may ask, shinobi-san, what happened?"

"Encountered some bandits along the way," I cheerfully explained, "Sometimes you just gotta beat the message into them. _Squeeze_ the message into them. Squeeze it into their _throats."_ My hand slipped out the front of my cloak, revealing that my entire hand was covered in blood. The blood oozed off of my hand, and dripped onto the floor. My hand made a tight clenching motion, miming choking someone to death.

The lord managed to stutter out a response, "O-of course sh-shinobi-san."

I threw the scroll rather unceremoniously onto his desk. It had bloody fingerprints on it. Hopefully the stuff inside didn't get wet.

The Lord seemed disgusted to be so close to blood.

Kami, I love screwing with people.

* * *

 _Three Months Later:_

I was walking with two other Chunin in loosely triangular formation, with me taking point. Over the past few months, I had garnered a reputation as a ruthless, sadistic killer. Probably due to the fact that on every mission I did, there were, at the very least, five deaths. Sometimes more.

Usually more.

I'm all sunshine and rainbows, I swear!

We were currently heading off to the Land of Grass to-

 _Shink!_

I turned to my left. A giant metallic blade had pierced one of my teammates through the neck. He gurgled up blood and stared blankly ahead with glassy eyes.

Whelp, he's dead.

 _Hiss!_

A multitude of snakes were eating my other teammate alive.

I guess he's also dead.

I'm gonna die next, huh?

I turned around to see frickin' Sasori and _Orochimaru_ of all people, staring at me, garbed in Akatsuki robes. Sasori was using Hiruko, the bulky and bizarre puppet armour stared at me with glassy eyes. Its bulky form was covered by a black cloak with red clouds. The Akatsuki cloak. Orochimaru looked as creepy as ever. He was wearing the Akatsuki cloak as well.

"Hey dad!" I cheerfully waved at Orochimaru. If I was to die today, at least I'd die while screwing with people.

"Dad?" Orochimaru echoes amusedly, "What makes you believe that I am your father?"

"Well, my earliest memories while growing up were in your lab," A lie, "So I assume you're my father? Or perhaps my creator. Oh Kami, please tell me I'm not a test tube baby."

"Kukuku, amusing," Orochimaru, "You were an experiment of mine, dear child. One that I thought had failed. How extraordinary."

"Oh yeah, that stuff. Saved my life a bunch times. Thanks dad-er… creator… experimenter? Something like that?" I put on a thoughtful expression. Internally I was panicking. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy _fucking shit_ , I was having a conversation with Orochimaru, with _Sasori_ standing right behind him.

How was I not dead yet?

"So, uh… yeah. Why are you here?"

"Kukuku. I learned of your survival from the Chunin exams. Come with me, 01132, or Seidome, if you prefer the name that the village gave you."

" _Come with you?"_

"Yes."

Damn. Become a missing-nin and live? Or refuse and die? Choices, choices. If I went with him, he enroll me into his forces, or experiment on me. If I were trained as part of his private army, then I might have the opportunity to kill him later. If I were experimented on, then I would either die or become stronger.

And if I didn't go with him, I'd die.

"Only if your partner gets me a prosthetic." I compromised.

Orochimaru gave another creepy, amused chuckle, and motioned for me to follow him. We set off into the forest, hopping from tree to tree.

For S-Rankers, these guys travelled really slow.

And by slow, I mean they were moving at the pace of my all out sprint.

Jerks.

I'm not exactly certain where they're taking me to. We were heading west, but west could mean anything from Suna to Iwa, so 'we're heading west,' isn't exactly a big indicator of where we were going.

Slowly, over the course of several days, the clear skies and lush forests of the Land of Fire faded away to an overcast sky and a light drizzle. The rain became more and more noticeable, becoming an eternal downpour. The rain never stopped, only growing in intensity as we traversed further.

Of course we're going to Ame.

You know, the Akatsuki headquarters.

 _Of fucking course._

I didn't even get an arm out of it. Either Sasori didn't have the materials on him (unlikely), forgot (unlikely), or just didn't feel like it (likely).

It's not as though my pitiful life would last much longer, what with me heading off to the Akatsuki headquarters, so it didn't really matter if I didn't have a prosthetic.

The towering buildings of Amegakure appeared along the horizon. The pouring rain shielded the city for the most part, only allowing a hazy silhouette of the village (city?) to be seen.

Neither of the two Akatsuki members bothered using a bridge to get to Ame, instead opting for water walking over the expanse of water to Ame. The perpetual rain only seemed to fall harder as we entered the village, rooftop running over highly industrialised buildings and dancing over skyscrapers.

It was easy to see now: the grotesque rinnegan-eyed likeness of a humanoid face, mounted on the tallest tower in the city. It was a whole lot more creepy in real life. As we drew closer to the tower, a head of intensely orange hair, garbed in Akatsuki robes could be seen, sitting on the outstretched tongue of the face.

His rippling purple eyes glowed in the shadows of the rainy sky.

He was looking right at us.

He stared down at us as we pushed open the large doors to the tower. Even when I couldn't see him, I could _feel_ his presence, ever watching, ever seeing, ever knowing.

Ever creepy as hell.

We ascended the tower using a rickety elevator. And when I mean rickety, I mean _rickety._ The 'elevator' was little more than a rusted platform being lifted by a system of old, rattling chains. This rudimentary lifting system allowed for a viewing of Pain's creepshow, proudly displayed along the walls.

Spiked to the rusted walls of the tower with black chakra receivers were countless bodies, with varying amounts of clothing, somehow staying preserved despite the fact that they had probably been there for years. These were what Pain turned to should any of the Six Paths become damaged.

It's a shame that there was no bad elevator music.

Seeing this grotesque display only made me remember the half thought out plan to obtain the Rinnegan that I had conceived months before. I wanted this power, I _needed_ this power if I wanted to stand a chance in the clusterfuck that was the Fourth Shinobi War.

The elevator screeched to a halt in the middle of the tower. Thank Kami, for a minute there, I thought that we were going to see Pain. That probably wouldn't have ended well. We walked across a narrow catwalk in a single file line, with Sasori in front, Orochimaru in the back, and me in the middle.

We walked into a circular room. Its aesthetic was much the same as the rest of the tower, dim electric light bulbs casting flickering shadows on its walls mostly comprised of rusted piping. In the room, seated around a circular table were several robed people. There were several chairs that remained empty, indicating absent members.

At the far end of the table, was a red haired man, his bottom half inside of a massive four-legged mechanism.

What do you know? I _am_ meeting Pain!

I'm going to die.

Without a doubt, I'm dead.

Oh damn, is he looking at me?

Look away! Look away! Kami dammit, don't make eye contact!

"And who would this be, Orochimaru?" Oh dear any deity out there, save my poor soul! Nagato noticed, and is now talking about me!

"Kukuku. An asset in the making." Holyyyyy, is he implying that I'll join Akatsuki? Or is that a hint that he's going to brainwash me and add me to his forces? Does he have Otogakure right now? Holy crap, is he planning to experiment on me? I was so caught up in my thoughts that I missed part of Nagato and Orochimaru's conversation.

"... which is why I am requesting a two week long leave of absence."

Nagato closed his eyes and mulled it over for a few seconds, "Approved. Go."

Orochimaru's cold grip settled on my shoulder, "Come child, there is work to be done."

I chirped a response, "Of course!" Even if on the inside I was _freaking out,_ I had to keep a calm image on the outside.

* * *

 _Interlude: The Sandaime Hokage_

Konoha's newest three Chunin didn't deserve their rank. None of them were suitable for the title of Chunin. Ayano and Daisuke had neither the skill level, nor the leadership qualities. It wasn't their fault, they had only been Genin for a few months.

Seidome most certainly had the skill level necessary for Chunin, in fact, he had more than the required level of combat prowess. He probably had some of Konoha's lower end Chunin beat. The problem lied in his attitude. He was impulsive, arrogant, and took nothing seriously. He was unfit to lead teams of Genin. None of that mattered anyways.

Seidome was missing.

The Sandaime Hokage sighed tiredly. Looking over the papers detailing the mission gone awry on his desk once again. The other two Chunin in Seidome's squad had been found, brutally killed on the side of the road.

Sarutobi Hiruzen only had to take a single glance at the autopsy report to know who was behind it.

 _Orochimaru._

His wayward student and greatest failure.

He should have known that this would happen. Seidome was practically on display at the Chunin exams. Orochimaru only needed to take a single look to know that his 'failed experiment' had not, in fact, failed, but instead was one of the village's most promising Genin, despite his short time training.

Whatever Orochimaru implanted into Seidome not only expanded his chakra reserves, but also gave him an _ungodly_ level of regeneration, in bursts. It had something to do with pain, or so the medical reports had said. Seidome was a ninjutsu specialist, and would perhaps turn out to be the perfect embodiment of the 'ninjutsu thrower' type of ninja.

His frankly insane chakra regeneration coupled with his skill with chakra manipulation, perhaps also a gift from Orochimaru, made him a Genin that could cause unprecedented amounts of destruction.

For a Genin, at least.

Given more time and training, Seidome could have become a shinobi of the same calibre as his sensei, Hatake Kakashi. Perhaps he would even surpass Konoha's Copycat Nin. If only his attitude changed.

None of this would happen should Orochimaru successfully assimilate Seidome into the forces that he was amassing.

Hiruzen nestled his face into his hands.

What a mess.

* * *

"So! Uh… where are we going?"

"The Land of Sky," Orochimaru was excited.

"Uh… nice."

Orochimaru was silent.

"So… if you don't mind me asking, why are we going to the Land of Sky?"

Orochimaru's teeth flashed in a grin, "To claim the rest of your powers, of course!"

Wait, there was more? I thought he threw the entire Reibi into me though? I suppose not. It would explain why the Reibi hasn't talked to me at all.

"Cool."

"... "

"Are we there yet?"

"Reaching the Land of Sky, at this pace, will take four days."

"Oh."

"... "

"... "

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"... "

"... "

"How about now?"

Orochimaru was silent, but his killing intent washed over me, filling me with a sense of dread and despair. It felt _wrong,_ like a tarnished soul. It was a monster, stalking its prey, waiting for a moment to strike. I was the prey. He was the predator.

Joke's on you! I generate chakra from this shit!

We pressed onwards, our path void of any bandits. Funny, when I went on missions with Kakashi, the roads we took always had one or two groups of bandits along them. For whatever reason, the roads I took now were almost entirely bandit-free.

The pouring rain of Ame slowly subsided as greenery once again become the dominant characteristic of the land around us. Orochimaru suddenly veered off of the path, into the forest to our left. I followed without a word.

We marched deeper into the forest, until Orochimaru abruptly stopped next to a boulder, "We're here."

"... Are we?"

"Yes," Orochimaru drew a kunai and scraped it along a boulder. The scraping revealed a rather large and complex looking seal. It glowed blue. Orochimaru placed his palm in the centre of the seal, his hand glowing blue with chakra. The seal's design darkened, deactivating.

The forest around us changed drastically. The trees faded away, becoming white, cylindrical buildings. We were no longer standing on dirt, but rather an ancient, cracked road made of bleached white stone.

These were the ruins of the Land of Sky's flying fortress, Ancor Vantian.

"Come, child. There is work to be done." Orochimaru started walking briskly through the ruined streets.

I looked around us at the city's ruins, then hurriedly ran to catch up to Orochimaru.

"Yo, can I check out the buildings first? There's gotta be some cool stuff in here."

Orochimaru paused to think, "Fine. Go. Don't keep me waiting for too long."

I scurried off to find the biggest, baddest building to pillage first. Rushing through the streets, I picked a rather large building off to the right. I didn't bother using the door, instead opting to use a Rat Tremor disc to explode my way into the building.

If any modern archaeologists found out that I did this, they'd murder me.

I stepped into the doorway, crumbling bits of blown up door falling on me. White dust swirled in tiny tornadoes around me. A soft ripping noise sounded from above my head. I looked up to see a scroll caught on a piece of debris, its paper ripping slightly on the rubble.

I picked up the scroll and unrolled it. It described and showed diagrams for a jutsu. The Water Clone jutsu. I rolled the scroll back up and sealed it in one of the spare storage seals that I always kept hidden away under my cloak. I looked up, and grinned.

This place was a library _._

A _shinobi_ library.

I hope Orochimaru doesn't mind if I stay for a while.

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry for the late update. I was sick for the past few days, and I had a lot of trouble with this chapter. I'm not really happy with how it turned out, but I wanted to get a chapter out._

 _I don't think the inside of Pain's tower was ever really described in Naruto, and I couldn't find much on the wiki, so I took some liberties with it._

 _Am I going too fast with the story? I feel as though Seidome reached Chunin really fast. All of my ideas are for later in the game, so I guess I wanted to reach endgame as soon as possible. Let me know if the pacing seems off._

 _Some Guy In An Ambulance: Sorry, I would've loved to see Seidome and friends stay under Kakashi for a little while more, but it doesn't seem like the most likely outcome. The village needs Kakashi to mentor Naruto and Sasuke, and are willing to throw aside some average Genin because of it. I tried to illustrate the fact that really only Seidome had the skills to be Chunin, as Ayano and Daisuke got destroyed in the third stage. But again, the village needs them out from under Kakashi._

 _kin gilgamesh: Saying that Seidome should've beaten the Storm Release guy and his teammates a few chapters back because of the Reibi is like saying that Naruto should've cruised through his Chunin exams because of his Uzumaki heritage and the Kyuubi. It doesn't work that way. Even with the Reibi's speed healing, dark chakra, and large reserves, Seidome still needs training in order to properly use them. I tried to illustrate last chapter that if he trained, he could be awesome. Dark chakra generally doesn't require hand seals to use, which is why he managed to use his lightning hounds without hand seals quickly. Even though they were made of regular chakra, he still had the intuition of sealless dark chakra jutsu. That's also why he managed to get one handed seals down so quickly._


	17. Chapter 17

_Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this._

* * *

I inspected the scroll in my hand. It described some kind of earth jutsu. I'm not sure if I can learn that one, given my lightning affinity. I tossed it into a storage seal anyways.

The next one has some kind of weird-ass lightning armour? Increases speed and durability… sounds like a crappy low-budget rip off of the Raikage's lightning chakra mode. Whatever, I'll take it.

Mist maker jutsu. Pretty sure they used this a lot down in Kiri. I'll take this one too.

Ooh, hit the jackpot with this one! The scroll I was holding right now had the Land of Sky's signature jutsu, _flying._ The user would take their chakra, mould it into mist, and then fly with it! Ooh, flying would be so cool! I can only imagine the shit I could with this-

"You have kept me waiting long enough." Orochimaru's coldly spoken words cut through my thoughts.

Ah, damn. Orochimaru has been rather indulgent with me so far. I thought that he just liked me or something. I guess not. He was just excited or something? Maybe that, I don't know.

"So we're going now?"

" _Yes."_

Okaaay. I _might_ die here.

I really wanted to check out the rest of the scrolls here. They probably had some cool jutsu in them. I wasn't feeling too confident about my chances of survival if I asked to go back to the library after we were done. I resolved to come back here later.

Actually, wasn't one of Orochimaru's goals to learn all of the jutsu in the world? Something like that? Maybe I could convince him with that.

Or, quite possibly, since Orochimaru had already been here to get that first piece of the Reibi, he probably already checked out the scrolls in the library.

Orochimaru lead the way through the street of the abandoned city, Or actually, wasn't it supposed to be a fortress or something? A flying fortress? The people of the Land of Sky used the Reibi's potent dark chakra to power up some ridiculous flying mechanism for the thing.

And now, Orochimaru is going to shove the rest of that ridiculous chakra battery into me.

This could either turn out to be very good, or very, _very_ bad.

We made our way to the tallest building of the entire fortress, which was smack dab in the middle of the thing. It had all sorts of statues and decorations on and around it. They weren't even _trying_ to be inconspicuous with this. It's like they were trying to announce to the world: important building, right here! Get over here and blow this shit up. If you do, we're done for!

Idiots. Maybe that's why this giant pile of junk crashed to the ground.

Inside the building was a massive room with blue walls covered in seals. From the walls extended what appeared to be strings of webbing, which all came together in the middle of the room, in what appeared to be a large cocoon of some sort.

"So… uh, what do I do?"

Orochimaru only gave a smirk in response.

Thanks Orochimaru.

I walked towards the glowing cocoon. Do I like, stick my hand in it, or something? Maybe I should poke it with a stick.

…

Unfortunately, there were no convenient 'anime physics' to get me a stick. Instead, I tentatively poked at the cocoon with my hand. It jiggled in a disturbingly liquid way.

I looked back towards Orochimaru for guidance. He just stared back at me with scientific lust in his eyes, and the small smirk remaining on his thin, pale lips.

Man, this is uncomfortable.

Alrighty, well…

The sound of electric chirping rang in air as the Chidori snapped to life in my hand. The bird calls sang louder as I raised the ball of condensed lightning chakra higher and plunged it into the cocoon.

The opaque white surface of the cocoon collapsed inwards, reminiscent of a balloon. The stupid thing still refused to pop.

Gritting my teeth, I stripped of the safety features of the Chidori, removing the inherent weakening of the lightning for user safety to turn it into something that I tentatively called the _Extreme_ Chidori!

With the 'extreme' in italics, and an exclamation point!

 _Extreme_ Chidori!®

Yeah, got to work on that name.

The cocoon folded further into itself. As the _Extreme_ Chidori!® roared onwards, it burnt my hand. The sickly sweet smell of burning flesh stung my nostrils, and the intense pain sent cold shivers of dark chakra through me.

Oh, sweet, sweet Grey Chidori, here we go!

The cocoon finally ruptured, sending sticky white fluid flying everywhere.

I struggled to ignore how similar to semen it felt.

Not that I would _know_ or anything…

 _Anyways,_ the cocoon ruptured, and the remnants of it were lying on the ground in glistening piles. Where the cocoon used to be was…

… nothing?

The cocoon was empty?

Well damn.

No power boost for me, I guess.

I turned back to Orochimaru. And - _hooo_ boy.

He's looking pissed.

What could've happened to the rest of the Reibi? Now, obviously others know about the thing, that was the plot of one of the movies or something, but none of them could actually use Reibi, or they would've done so in canon.

Perhaps one of them had seen me with my successful Reibi implant, and had reverse engineered the process with the rest? The dude who used dark chakra in the movie was a skilled doctor or something, right? I really don't know, I'm just grasping at straws here.

"Follow," Orochimaru's cold, and _angry_ hiss rang through the room. I looked back just in time to see his Akatsuki cloak swish dramatically as he exited.

I guess after the Reibi turned out to be a bust, Orochi-chan isn't in such a good mood anymore, huh? Probably shouldn't do anything to piss him off more. I hurried to follow him.

 _Man,_ mah books! I gotta come back here later for that sweet ninjutsu library. I did get a good haul out of it though, so it's not _all_ bad, but come on, there are like a million more scrolls still in there!

Maybe I'll come back after I murder Orochimaru.

I don't _dislike_ the guy anymore, it's just that he's going to invade Konoha, right? And kill the Hokage? That would be bad. There's also a bunch of other crap that he does later on that may prove to be problematic.

So I'll murder him!

And Kabuto too.

Also whoever the _fuck_ stole the rest of the Reibi.

Easy!

For now though, I'll just happily follow him around.

* * *

Orochimaru and I returned to the Pein's tower in Ame in silence. The trip, which lasted for several days, was passed with not a single word passed between us.

Rippled purple eyes followed us through the walls as we rose through the tower. Orochimaru lead the way through the winding, rusted labyrinth of the tower. We walked into the Akatsuki meeting room.

Normally, I would have made a loud and obnoxious comment, followed by some explosions or something, but here, I wasn't feeling brave enough in a room full of people who could _actually_ kill me.

"Orochimaru," Nagato greets him, "Was your trip successful?"

Orochimaru scowled, "Unfortunately not. It appears as though our objective had already been stolen by the time we had arrived."

"Hm. How unfortunate."

"I request… "

"No, Orochimaru."

Oh _man._ Orochimaru looks _pissed._

Nagato continued, "You have taken too long already with your trip. You need to go out and take on missions now. You may not look for the Reibi."

Oh jeez, if Orochimaru looked mad before, well…

I'm pretty sure that the Reibi was supposed to be one of those _secret_ secret projects. Orochimaru is a very secretive guy, and the fact that Nagato had pried into his business… yikes.

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes, "As you wish."

He started to head out and I followed him. He whipped around suddenly, "And you," he hissed, positively grinning, "Yes… this will be a good trial run. Go out, find the rest of the Reibi, and return to me with it. Either absorb it into yourself or seal it. It doesn't matter. Don't come back without it."

I gave him an informal, loose salute and a sloppy grin, "Sure thi-"

 _SHINK!_

I looked downwards. Orochimaru's hand had pierced my abdomen.

"I will not tolerate this sort of behaviour from you anymore," his voice was a cold whisper, "I've had enough with your attitude."

Orochimaru's hand twisted into my stomach, grinding into my innards. The pain was excruciating, but not overly so. Losing my arm hurt more than this. Besides, I could already feel the dark chakra churning, and my healing factor beginning to patch up some of the damage.

"If you fail to return with the Reibi, or if you decide to run off and betray me…"

 _Ah fuck!_

Orochimaru's hand lit on fire _inside me._ There was no way that he did this crap on normal minions. He must be doing it to me because he knows that I'll live in the end. But _fuck!_

 _Holy shit!_

 _Is he summoning_ _ **snakes**_ _inside me?. NonononononononononostoptakeitouttakeitouttakitOUT! Thedarkchakrabegantospinginsidemybodyandittriedtofrythesnakesbutitcouldn'tandittriedtohealmeanditcouldn'tandI'msohelplesssomebodyandthesnakesarestartingtoEATMEANDMYCHAKRAANDMYEVERYTHING!_

" _Are we at an understanding?"_

For the first time in my life, I was reduced to simple terrified nodding.

Dammit.

I hate being weak.

Fuck.

* * *

 _A/N: This chapter comes both late and really short. I'm really sorry guys, but I just couldn't get past this part of the story. I figured that I might as well get it out there after trying to get it done for several months. I'll figure something out for next chapter, don't y'all worry!_

 _MrTicklesMMM: I don't think it's exactly that Seidome is talented, it's just that his body is adapted to dark chakra. According to the wiki, dark chakra from the Reibi is absolutely ridiculous. Shinno, using dark chakra, could make shockwaves and even produce a Rasengan-like thingy with it. Even crazier, he claimed to be able to open all Eight Gates with no drawbacks so long as he had access to dark chakra. None of his dark chakra jutsu required hand signs and the only drawback is that dark chakra can rebound dangerously if a jutsu is interrupted. So, because Seidome's system is all screwed up from Orochimaru's experimentation, and he has the Reibi's dark chakra, it's easier for him to learn one handed seals. I think I explained that a little bit last chapter though. With respect to teaching others, his knowledge of one handed seals is heavily leaning on his natural dark chakra ability with no hand seals, which makes it practically unusable for others._

 _You raised an interesting point with the fangirls. Why_ do _Male SIs run away from their fangirls when they practically no moral boundaries? That does seem rather strange now that I think about it. I just threw it in as a gag, not really thinking about it._

 _I'm still figuring out what direction to go for this story, so I'm not exactly certain what path Seidome will take later on. I do sort of have an idea of where he's going, but nothing too concrete._

 _Some Guy In An Ambulance: Thanks for pointing out the 'machine gun,' reference. I wasn't really thinking about it when I wrote it. It doesn't really fit in with the setting, does it? Maybe Sarutobi Hiruzen, 'The Professor,' heard about these things? I don't know. It doesn't fit, but I can't think of any other thing that would complete that analogy. If anybody has suggestions, feel free to leave them in the reviews._


End file.
